Tacit
by Lilacsbloom
Summary: They met outside Savannah thirteen years ago, not long after the world fell apart. Their old lives were long gone, and so were the people they used to be. Just survive and get by for another day, it's all they did now. Walkers weren't so much the problem, the living were and it was foolish to be so trusting, for even the most generous of people still had skeletons in their closets.
1. Prelude

A/N: The idea for this story came to me around about April last year, and it was one I tried to ignore for quite a while with me being so busy. Despite being behind on my other TWDG story Skin-Deep [which I have been in the midst of writing again, rejoice!] in the end I found this concept was calling to me so much that I had to do it.

I wanted to go down a different, more serious path than to my previous TWD stories, and make use of perspective switching, because unlike Growing Pains and Skin-Deep, each chapter will switch between our two leads. While playing with the idea I haven't seen that many people try before, Tacit also gives me the opportunity to go forward with the theme of a certain conflict from Season 2 that never quite saw itself through to the end, and writing certain characters I have been unable to write properly until now…b…because um, I accidentally killed them off.

Overall this is a story I've wanted to attempt for a long time, and it has been a real challenge with a lot of planning behind it. My goal with Tacit is creating something that makes readers really think. However, as an alternate universe like my other stories, again, this is not my take on a Season 2 or a Season 3, and shouldn't be regarded as such.

A special thanks to the Sialark and Keepmoving who helped beta for me, and to BembiAnn for allowing me permission to use her artwork for this story who you can find on tumblr and deviantart.

* * *

 ** _The Walking Dead  
Tacit_**

 _Chapter 1: Prelude_

* * *

Somehow, it always ended up being just them.

Home was just a word, fleeting as had been their destination, going from state to state and doing what they could to survive. They travelled with little purpose other than to get by, never staying in one place for too long. To keep their distance from others, they had learnt that lesson well, for however big or small a group, their functionality fell apart in the face of disaster, whether those inflicted by others or of their own undoing. Friendships forged and burnt to cinders; too often deceived and too many names and places to count where it didn't last. And after all the blood spilled, the lives to perish, from the ashes the two would emerge, drifters on the road again.

Finding themselves a haven—they had given up on that years ago, and chose to stop seeking freedom out from the gates of hell and accepted this world for what it was. The cavalry would never sweep in and fix things, and no walls or community were strong enough to hold out without corruption self-destructing it at the core. Together, just the two of them to watch one another's backs, for tactfulness and trust, it was enough.

This was their life now, and that's just how it was.

* * *

"Luke, look."

A hand lightly touched his shoulder, the young woman by his side gesturing over yonder where the horizon skies were scorched red. In the once empty streets of dilapidated buildings, dirty figures now crowded together a few blocks away, shambling on and spreading like cancerous cells invading the town. Walkers, lots of them; looked like a huge parade going on down there. Luke smelled it carried on the wind, death, from a decade's worth of rot filling his lungs. What better day to be alive than to be breathing that in of an evening?

"Not seen a herd that big in a while," his statement was casual, his awareness heightened, but not with great bouts of fear or stress. They had dealt with this situation enough times to know they could deal with it here; the living were the least predictable ones, while the dead got more cumbersome.

Luke turned back to the mummified walker lying on that rooftop, so weak the corpse could move its jaw in only the pitiful chomps of broken teeth, those thin stick arms too weak to lift themselves up. Dehydration or starvation were the likely cause of the man's death, too spineless to venture down and take his chances when all his supplies ran out; the refuge he'd sought here was poor, his tent was weathered into disuse, old clothes and trash scattered. An old banner tied together from sheets was hung over the building's roof, the faded words HELP scrawled on them in paint; he and Clementine had seen it from the street below, which inevitably led them here, to nothing of significant use. Discarded rusted cans all but empty, no food, no weapons; coming up here had been a waste of time.

Luke pulled out the knife from the sheath strapped to his leg.

"How long you reckon we got?"

"Hmm...ten minutes tops, maybe less," Clem concentrated on that portion of downtown the herd was advancing from through her small handheld telescope, certainty in her tone. "They'll be here soon."

"Be best to coat up then; no sense takin' gambles with that many," a knife through the forehead, the hollow eyes of the walker rolled into the back of its sockets, and still the corpse was. Those tattered clothes hung loose, thin and torn, exposing the belly or the lack of one to Luke. "This guy ain't got much on him; might be worth usin' one of the others we put down earlier."

Clem gave the walker the once-over, appearing to agree with his decision. That small telescope tucked away into her sweater pocket, she adjusted her hair bun and that an old weathered baseball cap, before heading for the fire escape they'd used to climb up to that rooftop. She spoke those words of warning as they always did; it was almost religious.

"Eyes and ears."

Ground level, their steps retraced, they found her in an alleyway next to a stone stairwell, the frail corpse of a headless woman that Clem decapitated earlier, a clean cut through the neck with that twelve-inch tantō blade strapped to her waist. The head of the walker laid nearby, its skull crushed in.

Clem kept a lookout while Luke went to work, using his knife to cut open the walker right down its middle, spilling out its rotten internal organs onto cardboard and old trash. The odor was nasty as always, his eyes watering at the smell filling his nostrils, but he persevered, sticking his hands right into the maggot-filled mess and smearing it onto his jeans and sweater. Such a repulsive business Luke never likened to, no matter often the cycle was repeated, but better than being eaten alive.

His friend took her turn next coating up after he was done, while Luke took his own turn in standing guard, so no dead in the area could creep up on the pair. When done, they cautiously walked out onto the desolate street of rusted cars, broken windows, cracked roads and pavements where small green plant life sprouted. The herd was approaching on their right, just a few short minutes away.

"What do you wanna do?" Luke asked.

The young woman kept a steady hand trained over the tantō, her eyes flicking between the masses of dead, examining and strategizing. "To head through the storm, then it's out of the way."

The machete was pulled free from the sheath holstered to his back, sunlight catching on the blood-splattered blade, still holding up nicely; a gift from a lover to replace a previous weapon lost, the inscription ' _Boy Scout'_ burnt into the handle. He couldn't resist tracing over the words with his thumb, stirring up the recollections of black eye shadow, cigarettes, and leather boots with brass buckles.

Their days spent scavenging around in the bare bones of that town for supplies were up, with little to nothing found. They were days that could've been spent better by foraging for food or setting snare traps. It was time to go.

"Alright. Lead the way."

They walked head on, towards that oncoming herd. A look shared, their steps slowed and they drifted apart, blending in among the rotting bodies of filth that gurgled and croaked uncomfortably close around them, shuffling on old cracking limbs. A few eyeless beings on their last legs, others with arms amiss and jaws hanging open. The deads' clothing were identical to one another, with shoes worn, boney feet bare, to shirts and pants ripped to tatters, pieces sticking to leathery dried flesh as if one and the same.

The stench…

Keeping in each other's sights, he and Clem wandered slowly through that herd for several minutes, until the dead grew sparse and it was just them alone again to reconnect and walk the remainder of the way out of the town to a fast approaching dusk. Not a word was said.

* * *

Crickets chirped in the heat. Through the windows, the trees and neighboring houses on the outer suburbs of the town were nothing but the blackened soot of shadows, waiting to disappear in that fading light. A few cans of leek soup discovered in an empty pantry was all they'd had to share between them; it didn't taste too good, but would get them through another day to wherever they ended up next.

A whisper spoke to him on the verge of sleep, snapping Luke awake.

"Tell me a story."

Curled up and wrapped in blankets on the floor next to him, Clem's gaze stayed fixed on the silver button on the sleeve of her denim jacket, taken from the closet in that house with other clothes to replace most of their reeking gut stained ones. The bedrooms were a no go, a suicide family sleeping eternal in their beds with the empty chamber of a gun trapped in the bony grip of one parent. Decomposition hadn't been kind. Downstairs was where they were better off, the two-seater too cramped; the floor was the next best leisure in life that they were used to. No sense in building a fire, not while indoors.

The young woman was distracted; it was not the first time Luke had seen that look on her face.

"Like what?" he asked.

"Something from before; you remember things better than I do," Clem said.

"Okay...what do ya wanna hear?"

"Anything."

"Alright," both arms behind his head, dust was gathered on a ceiling fan above them both; it was similar to those Luke recalled in a diner a few days prior. The memory of greasy burgers, of butter and syrup pancakes from the good old days, they fed a hunger the cold dated soup hadn't satisfied. "Ate this meal one time, food didn't go down—"

"Other than you taking a bunch of dumps," Clem interrupted.

"You did say _anything_."

"Luke..."

He smirked too proud of himself to admit, wanting to relish in the humor for as long as it stuck with him. Things quieted down while left to his thoughts, and he drew in a breath, releasing it.

"Took a vacation to North Carolina a few years before all this; two weeks, it was just me and the boys."

No longer toying with the sleeve of her denim jacket, Clementine slowly looked at him with an almost childlikeness Luke didn't see much of in her nowadays.

"Was Pete there?" she asked

"No, he weren't...but Nick, his nephew, y'know, the guy I told ya about? He was. He hadn't wanted to go; I talked him into it, took some persuasion."

Luke carried on like that for a while, saying whatever came off the top of his head from a vacation with those who were nothing but ghosts to him now. He exaggerated a couple of parts, making the trip sound better than it was, and honed in on the important details of what Luke assumed Clem wanted to hear about the bygone era, and then some. He described the white beaches, the gulls, the sparkling blues seas that dazzled the eyes, the boats drifting on the water, the music and gossip from tourists of families and folks that flocked there during the summer time in big crowds. 'I love the beach,' Clem often told him.

She listened, rarely without interrupting unless to ask a question, those gold eyes remaining steady on him in the darkness of evening turning to night, soon difficult to see her face. Her breathing fell slow and even, having drifted off to sleep before Luke was finished telling his tale, as was often the case for the stories she would ask of him to share, and take their minds off what had transpired in the day.

The stories were her lullabies, keeping the nightmares at bay.

* * *

 _Nearly thirteen years ago they met when she was just a short skinny bean of a girl. He and Pete, they'd lost everything that week, the rest of their group dead, all their friends, their families; it happened too fast. The scars hadn't had time to set when out on that meadow they had seen Clementine below the branches of a bowing tree, her tiny figure standing where they themselves had been a few ten or so minutes before after ditching their ride, the car out of gas from driving all night._

 _Pete and himself mistook her for the dead at first, the distance and the blood on her clothes amplifying those suspicions. The girl had approached the pair with tiny and timid steps, crossing that vast grassy meadow towards them as they had too made their own way forward. Every few yards she would stop, just to watch them like a spooked deer watching hunters, before advancing in a little closer. When the distance shortened to the last dozen yards, it was easier to tell a live corpse the girl wasn't, but a danger? That was open to debate._

 _Nine years old and carrying a gun, two things Luke hadn't liked put together._

 _Pete broke in the introductions first, the bravest between them to step forward towards the armed child. "Hello there, you lost young lady?"_

 _That gun clutched in her small hands, aimed at the ground, the girl had looked between them, wide eyed and frightened. She was jumpy, the sort that would pull a trigger by mistake, the bad kind that kept Luke on his toes._

 _The old man didn't let that deter him. "The name's Pete, and this here fellow with me is Luke, a friend of my sister's boy. What's your name?"_

 _Her mousy voice broke after a long wave of silence, of the long grass rustling in the early dawn breeze._

 _"Cle...Clem, Clementine."_

 _"Clementine? Well, what a lovely name. Luck should have it, I used to know somebody by that name growing up; a real funny girl," Pete bluffed for small-talk; no Clementine of such had ever come up in a discussion in the past to Luke, that of him knowing._

 _"Where are yer parents?" Luke was to ask, scanning the meadows of golden grass, the colors of the landscape stagnant by the autumn. "They out here somewhere with you?"_

 _His face fell when she shook her head._

" _No...no, t-they're gone..."_

 _Giving Luke a long, acknowledging look, the old man adjusted the strap of his shotgun hanging over his back, and cautiously he'd knelt down in front of the forlorn looking child._

 _"I'm sorry to hear that," Pete spoke to her, sincere. "We lost people of our own just recently ourselves; my sister and nephew along with them, God rest their souls…"_

" _They died because of the walkers?"_

" _The what now?"_

" _The...the monsters."_

" _Yeah, that'd be them. Whole herd swamped us on a backroad some days ago now; didn't stand much of a chance in hell. Got Luke's folks too; ain't that right boy?" Pete said, awaiting the clarification Luke never gave, too numb for such trivial talk. The old man continued. "You got anybody watchin' out for you, another group?"_

 _Clementine stared down at her dark sandals, with another tired shake of her head._

 _"No, I don't know. There were a lot of us. I tried to, to find them, but they weren't...I…"_

 _Dead or alive, they never found out. Over a decade on, none of those from Clem's group were seen again. They were gone, and there within in that time and place with nobody and not a thing around for miles? It seemed sure as hell nobody was going to come looking for her._

 _"It's alright, you don't have to say no more about it," Pete words held assurance, to the sniffling child welling up with tears. "Why don't you stick with us for a while? It's not safe for a girl your age to be out here all by yourself."_

 _"Not safe for anybody," Luke muttered under his breath, unheard by the girl, but not to Pete to have sent him an ill-tempered scowl. The old man was near enough to snatch the gun out of the nine-year-old's hands, yet he didn't try for all the efforts of gaining her trust; her skittish nature too jumpy to risk having their faces blown off._

 _"I-I don't...do I have to?" Clementine asked._

 _"Of course not, but I'd rather not leave you all alone here; wouldn't be that much of a good man if I did," was Pete's response, all but good intentions behind it. "If you want, we'll stay with you until we're able to track down members of your group, or some other decent folks out there with kids of their own willin' to take care of you. How does that fair?"_

 _The girl had looked past Pete, staring at Luke from where he was, examining his face with teary eyes wide as if searching for something hidden, a trick or indication of wicked deceit, nothing of the sorts a child should have to do. He used to think he was a decent judge of character, telling apart the friends from foes, the good from wicked. Yet people were puzzles, and they weren't so easily solved._

 _Whatever she'd seen in him, it left that little girl decided as she looked back to Pete, wiping one of her cheeks stained in fresh tears._

 _"Y-Yeah…okay."_

 _Nobody got hurt; when asked, Clementine allowed for Pete to take the gun off her, with little to no protest. They never went looking for her group, the word of Savannah being overrun by the dead deterring such efforts. Sticking around the area a few miles out from such a herd hadn't sat well for a plan after encountering one before at the cost of their group, so they chose to move on. For many weeks from the few good strangers they met, the girl would ask out the names from her group and if any were sighted. None were, and in the very end, she stopped asking._

 _Clementine, she'd grown remarkably close to Pete in those first couple days, and did so over the course of those years. A parental figure to the child, the connection between the kid and Pete was almost there overnight, and to Luke's own surprise at just how strong it formed in such short period of time. 'He reminded me of Lee,' the girl would confess in the not too distant future when Pete was no longer with them, the similarities unable to be shared for Luke had never met the friend she spoke fondly of._

 _The old man himself, Pete, he took to the kid well, being less tough on her than Pete had been on Nick and himself when they were boys, but still stuck in his ways; the motto every man must be a man and nothing less, but women had the right to choose how thick-skinned they wished to be, the old timer saw no reasoning beyond that._

 _Unlike Clementine and Pete, Luke and the kid weren't all that close for a while. Witnessing Carlos and his girl get eaten alive by the walkers a few days before Clementine showed up in that meadow, it became a bleak reminder to him this wasn't a world for anybody, especially children. Having another young girl travelling around with them again, he'd worried about history repeating itself; as if he hadn't dealt with enough grief already._ _Pete's suggestion of finding her a better group, it became the best alternative to him. Luke didn't want to get attached to that kid, he couldn't, thought it'd be easier putting the responsibility on somebody else than dealing with it himself._

 _That plan blew up in his face spectacularly._

 _The long hours listening to crackling of the fire lit in that stove, and the smell of burning pinewood, they were to be intruded upon by the creak on the stairs. Luke hadn't the need to look, but he had chosen to anyway, knowing who it was._

 _"Can't sleep?"_

 _The small figure carefully wandered down the staircase of that cabin, the nine-year-old's Bambi eyes weighed with shadows below them. A green blanket was snuggled around her, pulled over her head like a hood, the kid so short, the blanket was dragging behind her along those floorboards, towards the couch where he'd been sat tasked with maintaining those handguns in their possession._

 _"I had a really bad dream...is Pete awake?" Clementine asked._

 _"He already hit the sack; been out a while now, probably best to leave him," Luke had motioned his head over at the closed door to the first floor bedroom, the warthog snores heard faintly from within._

 _Silent the girl was, before asking another question._

 _"Why aren't you sleeping?"_

 _"Night owl," was all he'd given, too distracted checking the barrel of the handgun to have been cleaned and solvent. He tested the gun slide after it was reattached, ensuring it worked fine before dry-firing the unloaded weapon, the trigger releasing a soft click._

 _The kid still standing there, reluctant to leave and climb the stairs had soon caught his attention again._

 _"Can sit down if ya want," was his offer._

 _"Hmmm..."_

 _Rather than choose the other couch in that cabin, Clementine had found a spot on the two-seater next to him instead, soon making herself comfortable, wrapped in the cocoon of her blanket. There she'd stayed a silent thing, drowsy and yet aware to everything Luke was doing while he cleaned that second firearm, the pistol to have once belonged to that girl. She was too astute, as a glance to check on her revealed the girl focusing not on the disassembled gun on that coffee table, but on a black and white glossy photo creased in the middle, words written on its exposed back, taunting at him with unacquainted longing._

 _ **Talk to me**_

 _The grease wiped off on a grubby stained white shirt, the photo was snatched up, and Luke pocketed it away._

 _"So, watcha dream about?" he'd asked._

 _"Scary stuff."_

 _"Uh huh..."_

 _The nine-year-old had wriggled her feet in her socks, her short legs not long enough for them to touch the floor from where they hung off the edge of the couch._

 _A question was raised, curious with childish motives._

 _"Do you know any bedtime stories?"_

 _A fraction of a moment Luke stalled during the midst of cleaning that pistol, before he'd continued on._

 _"Not off by heart, no."_

 _"Oh..."_

 _From a brief pause in time for feet to wriggle, another question was raised._

 _"Do you know any stories that aren't bedtime stories?" Clementine asked._

 _"Sure," he'd said._

 _"Can you tell me one?" she'd asked further._

 _A shrug._

 _"Depends what kinda one that is you wanna hear, squirt."_

 _"Something, happy?"_

 _"Happy...yeah; gotta couple in mind that'd be those, I guess."_

 _Like Luke said. The plan blew up in his face spectacularly._

* * *

A thrift store full of second-hand clothing, toys, sports gear and all other sorts of forgotten knick knacks. Glasses, plates and ornaments were all left to gather dust, with coat hangers and wrinkled garments littered around the store floor where people had dumped old clothing for those on the rack. It seemed as if other survivors had been here before, doing the same thing they were, by rifting through those items for anything they could use.

The building was secure, stinking only of stagnant air rather than corpses, and the wide store windows let in plenty in of daylight allowing for decent visibility. Outside things were quiet, with a few shops across from a gas station, all of it situated miles out in the woods. They had time to browse.

"What about this one?"

Luke looked away from the long rack of men's clothes when Clem popped up in the left of his peripheral vision. Her head was poking out from one of the aisles; she was wearing a green camo-cap.

The memory of an old friend often in camo-pants sparked in his mind. Not a match.

"Nah, doesn't quite suitcha'," he said. "Try somethin' else."

A crinkle of her nose, the young woman disappeared again. Some rummaging about, a few beanies and bobble hats tossed on the floor outside the aisle, her head popped around the corner again, this time wearing an orange cap with white stripes.

"This?"

"…Traffic cone."

" _What?_ "

He gestured to his head. "Y'know, the color with the-"

Clem groaned and stepped out of sight, that hat quick to be flung across the thrift store like a Frisbee, knocking sunglasses off a stand by the cash register.

"I'll never find a good one."

"You will."

"Not like mine."

"Pessimistic."

Not far from him, a violet sling backpack belonging to that of his friend was left down by his own brown faded knapsack. The old D inscribed baseball cap resided on top, dirty, wore and falling apart. Too often sewn and patched up for over a decade now, that it could no barely hold out being worn a decade more. It was cherished, but not invulnerable to wear and tear.

Flipping through the rack, Luke pulled out a jacket by its hanger, the redish brown color eye-catching as the leather. There were enough pockets, but too small a size, and not his style.

Back it went.

"Can check someplace else; not the end of the world, Clem."

Debunking the suggestion with a scoff, the young woman wandered on out from the aisle and down the rows past him, boots scuffing on the tiles. "Have you been outside lately?"

"Nope, been cramped down in a bunker eatin' stale beans all these years," Luke smirked. "You?"

"Limbo," Clem trailed to a stop by a bookcase nearby full of small ornaments, animals and humans alike. Among them he caught her picking up a snow globe, wiping years of dust away to reveal a tiny house inside that glass bubble. "When's my birthday again? It's soon right?"

The dates on a calendar were long lost track of. Guess work was the ways things ran now, based on the seasons and the lengths of days between them. The climate was still warm, but change was in the air, the days getting shorter, the evenings colder.

Luke was quiet for a while, inspecting a moth-eaten sweater with little interest. "About….think, a month or so now, might be less."

"I feel old."

"Hah, think twenty-two'll be old, should try bein' me; partway to earnin' myself the title of old-timer over here," Luke said for humoring effect. "Don'tcha get me started on the grays."

That snow globe tipped upside down for only a few seconds, Clem held it up to her face, watching with fascination as minute glittery stars fell over and around the small house inside it. Luke noticed her standing there a while still holding the thing, until at some point she wandered off while he was taking down something from the highest rack. It was brown leather jacket with a hoodie, the thing worn, but durable and the right size. It would do.

" _Leather's not really my style, just thought you should know that."_

 _His statement had earned him a scowl from the ashy-brown haired woman, distracted straightening out the jacket on him, ensuring it fit right on the sleeves._

" _Be thankful it's not stilettos I'm putting on you."_

" _Good point."_

 _A roll of her almond eyes, the woman had fetched up the sheathed machete from the floor, carefully fitting the holster around his torso, over the new jacket. The straps brought around to the front, she'd fastened them over his chest, while having taken her sweet time with a task Luke could have easily done himself._

 _Her lips narrowed with a piercing gaze to match. "What?"_

" _Nothin'."_

" _Wipe that grin off your face then; I'm not fooling around."_

" _I know."_

 _A sigh to his playfulness, she went on fastening the last strap, a sly smile overruling the deadpan expression on her fair-skinned features._

" _This might be all fun and games for you, but like it or not you have to start dressing like a survivor," she'd given the collar of his exposed shirt a tug. "These flimsy shirts of yours are a written invitation for every corpse to Timbuktu to take a bite out of you. So if you don't mind, I'd like to keep you in one piece."_

" _I'm sure you do-oof!" the curled fist to Luke's gut had been anything other than gentle, and yet he'd rolled with the punches as it was said, giving the most charming smiled in surrender, mustered up just for her. "One piece? Gotcha."_

" _Good," that pretty face close enough to count her eyelashes, the woman leaned her body into him and pressed her lips to his right cheek, a teasing whisper to his ear sending a pleasing shiver from where her warm breath tickled his skin. "Just remember who saved your ass, little man."_

A folded photograph and a folded piece of paper, both crumbled and worn on the ridges; Luke remembered to take them out from his back jean pocket, slipping them on the inside pocket of the leather jacket once it was fitted and the machete holster strapped on. They would be safer in there.

He didn't look. He couldn't...

"Oh my God, you're kidding me!"

Clem's voice brought alarm, Luke finding her down one of the aisles in no time at all. The young woman was safe, no threats around. She was knelt down to one of the lower shelves, pulling out from under some children books what appeared to be a strangely shaped plastic box with stickers on it.

Her expression was one of excitement. "I, I haven't seen one of these since I was a kid!"

On approach, the shape became identifiable to Luke as something that played music, but new to him in that it still sparked curiosity.

"A toy record player?"

As it was lifted up, colorful disks fell out from a side compartment, plastic records barely bigger than CD disks rolling everywhere onto the floor.

Clem giddily scrambled to pick them all up. "It's a music box."

"Y'sure? Cause it looks like a—"

"No, no it is. I'll show you."

A record got left behind as his friend hurried off, left down by Luke's foot which he retrieved and inspected. A peachy color, one side damaged, scratched and chipped, but the other side remained intact with strange grooves on it. The title Jack and Jill was engraved on the record, the title of a nursery rhyme he'd vaguely recollected.

To the checkout counter where the cash register was, Clementine stood there with her newfound toy on the glass display case. The sight of her tampering with the thing was an amusing one to watch.

"My mom, she got me one of these for my birthday. I used to play it in my treehouse all the time," Clem said on his approach while dusting off the bizarrely designed music box. "I hope this thing still works…um, can I—"

"Yeah," Luke let her take the plastic record he had at hand, watching her place it down on the turntable, and resting what appeared to be the tone arm bearing a cartridge over it. She flipped the _ON_ switch, and…nothing.

Her shoulders sunk with disappointment. "Shit."

"Maybe, it runs on batteries?" he asked.

"No…it should've, _oh!_ " a spark of realization, Clem tilted up the front of the music box, grabbing what appeared to be a dial; she turned it three, four times, and on the fifth, the toy came to life. That plastic record of titled Jack and Jill began a slow spin on that turntable, and with it was created a simple, but beautiful melody, vivid and almost taboo to the ears in a world long without songs.

Clem looked overjoyed. "It works!"

"Sure does," Luke leaned against the display case, content to listen to that music box with her. Such things were never in his own possessions over the course of his lifetime, and yet still, it reminded him of simpler times of being a boy and of the ebony jewelry box in his ma's bedroom that would play whenever she put on her favorite pair of earrings or other pieces of her jewelry. And then there were of course other times that music triggered of which he tried to put out of his mind, the memories to have gone amiss for many years…

The music box ran a fifth cycle of that nursery rhyme before the windup contraption died, its tune disappearing back into the void as its brief moment in time came to past. His friend didn't wind the toy again, not immediately, her face having changed to one without happiness, those gold Bambi eyes remaining steady on that music box as if its melody played on still inside her memory.

'They grow up so fast,' the term from a world gone extinct. There was little than the whisper of the child Clem used to be, her cheekbones becoming more define in recent months, or was their poor malnutrition in that time misleading such change? He'd seen it all, watched her shoot up through to adolescence, teen tantrums, to where they stood now. There was no pride, not for someone raising a child the best that they could in the circumstances handed to them, only pity, _loss_ , for what never was. Luke considered himself fortunate, for his childhood, and some of the early adulthood of his twenties, were both decent enough in contrast, but Clementine never got that. Over half her lifetime was spent, not being able to live by the old ways, with so much that couldn't be undone.

Clem was to turn her head in his direction, focusing not directly on _him_ , but on the new jacket which Luke wore, his friend studying it a short while. "I want to be alone for a bit. Is that okay?"

She sounded on the verge of breaking, though he saw no visible signs, not the ones many would've suspected. A wooden gaze, the sort he'd seen on her before in times he'd rather forget. There was reluctance in him to respect those wishes, until Luke found it in himself to give her the space she needed.

"Yeah…yeah, sure," he said, moving away from the display case. "Just, come and find me when you're ready."

Nothing was said, only a small nod of Clem's head acknowledging his words.

A light pat to her shoulder, Luke left as requested, choosing to snoop out the rest of the thrift store by himself. Many times that music box would play again from that end of the store by the checkout counter, the twisting of the dial, clattering of plastic, and a new melody freed from its prison.

Passing by a metal storage basket, handbags and purses bundled inside, something stuck out of place to reel Luke back, an interest strong enough for him to fish it out. The color violet and made of cardboard, it was a slim jewelry box with a tiny bow. The lid cracked open, inside something gold shimmered in the light, a chain.

A glance to where his friend stood, her back turned with all attention held on creating music, Luke shut the lid of that box, returning to where he'd left his knapsack on the floor not far from Clem's, tucking it in discreetly with a smile to himself.

This would do.

* * *

The kick came hard to his ribs, adding damage to what was already broken.

There was shouting, a jumble of words forming an incoherent sentence that couldn't be understood to a brain of jello. It took Luke too long to figure them out before another kick came, this time straight into his abdomen.

"I won't ask you again! Now where's the girl?"

Bandits, they ambushed Luke outside the thrift store and only him. Clem, after they'd both walked outside she'd gone off to take a piss in the alleyway between that store and another, and while she was away out of sight, those bandits showed up. They had come from the road he and Clementine had previously travelled from, the group of strangers walking right out from around bend of those trees. It was no coincidence them being here; he and Clem had been tracked.

All in casual gear, the bandits were three young men in their twenties or so, and one a woman who was the graying middle-aged leader of the three not-so-lost boys. Relations were there, clear to be defined by the similarities of their broad noses and narrow chins, as was it the same with those bright brown eyes and their long greasy brown hair. A mother and her sons, or an aunt with her nephews perhaps, Luke hadn't known at first and none of that matter, because he got bad vibes off the lot of them. He'd known he was in trouble the moment they set their sights on him like a rabbit caught in a snare.

He heard the group too late to find cover and hide, marveled by a hawk hovering high up in the sky while stood in the road in a brief moment's distraction that cost him for what was his own fault. The bandits were all armed to the teeth, brandishing rifles to 9mm pistols, all enough to be intimidating.

"Greetings stranger! It's a pleasure meeting you here!" charismatically had spoken the woman, as if out on a morning stroll. No age and gender could deter from the threat she posed. The strong outline of muscles on her vest and exposed forearms a sign that she was anything but frail.

One the youngest of the males, a baby-faced bandana-wearing man, he'd aimed a gun at Luke the second he'd tried to bolt. The weapon resembled a luger, an antique. "Nuh ah, oh no you don't; you be staying right where you are. Lead's not good for the body, you know what I'm saying?"

Too close of range to flee without getting shot, at gunpoint Luke was given no other choice but to raise his arms and surrender. "I don't want no trouble guys. Just take my stuff and-"

"Whoa whoa whoooa, slow down," another of the men interrupted, being a bear of a guy with a scar on his lip. "You're taking things way too fast pal; you do what we tell you to do."

"Yeah, we're running the show, not you!" the third and final male mocked, a short guy with thick sideburns. "Fucking pacifist!"

The gun trained on him, Luke was ordered to throw down his knapsack and weapons, consisting of nothing more than the knife strapped to his leg and the machete on his back. The group closed in with the female leader in front, who was to kick his weapons far from reach into the company of those behind her. She was the type of woman to have been attractive in her youth, and retained much of that beauty to old age, but inner beauty she was anything but. There was not a scrap of decency reflected in her eyes, rotten through to the core.

An eerie calmness surrounded the woman an the aura, and the question she'd posed to him.

"Where is she?"

Luke stared her down. "I don't know who—"

"Your girlfriend! Don't play dumb asshole, we saw her!" Babyface shouted.

The woman hand signaled for silence from her boy. "She's here, isn't she? Hiding somewhere, am I right?"

How much had it taken Luke not to break eye contact, to not to give away any indication of where his friend remained in hiding in that alleyway, probably listening to everything.

"Just me here, _ma'am,_ " he'd said.

"Of course it is," the woman studied him up and down, her thin lips revealing a flat smile. "You've no guns? Poor man...then, neither does _she?_ You weren't armed with them earlier from what we saw on my son's scope; I bet that's still so or you wouldn't look so skittish."

When? How long ago were they spotted and tracked? That morning, it must've been, or these folks would've acted sooner and in the night. Adrenaline in the veins, fight or flight, and neither could be done. Breathing trained steady, a tactic of desperation emerged.

"You don't have to do this," Luke had said, full knowing reasoning was beyond them, and soon ENOUGH he was proven true.

The woman's smile formed into remorse, her eyes wide and sadistic.

"But I do. We have to."

With a crack of her knuckles, that's when like a street gang, they attacked him.

Rather than shoot him dead, make it quick, they beat the living shit out of him. A fist to his face, with a kick or two bringing the ground in fast as stones and broken slabs of road connected with Luke's cheek, scrapping at the skin. The senses got knocked out of him after a few blows to the head, breaking the world apart into him seeing only stars and blackness for a time. The pain struck in bursts on coming to, suffered in the crack of his ribs, his nose. Luke couldn't remember much in between the beatings, a blessing almost.

There was a persistent thought, a fear for himself, for Clementine, that she would intervene or give herself up.

 _'Stay hidden,'_ he kept praying whenever consciousness permitted it.

" _ **—**_ firearm she'd of used it by now; stake her out," were the words to welcome Luke when regaining consciousness, the words of the female leader. It took his sluggish mind too long to register it, the voices of men echoing in the spinning vortex of his skull. The remarks sent a chill down his spine.

"Time for some pussycat, you get me?"

"When the fuck don't I?"

Hunched over on the ground, Luke pulled in short stabbing breaths. A copper taste was in his mouth, and his nose bled, dripping bright red in a rhythm of pitter-patters on his leather jacket sleeve when trying to get up, _failing._

Two dark shapes walked off towards the sparse stores lining one side of that street, the figures splitting and rejoining in his double vision, everything a blur. Anger and fear intertwined, they were not enough to aid Luke's battered body to fight back when a hand roughly grabbed the scruff of his hair, and shoved his face into the ground. The old woman chose to be the one to deliver him more beatings, demanding answers Luke refused to give. He could tell the sideburns guy was there too, just beyond the haze on guard, a semi-automatic rifle armed at the ready to shoot anything that moved.

"If you're listening girl, you best turn yourself in now if don't want to this ending badly for your partner here!" the female bandit enticingly called out. To no response coming, she knelt beside Luke, the task of focusing on the woman's face near impossible with the fight to remain conscious. "Call her out of hiding. I'm sure you don't want her to watch you suffer anymore than you do having your bones broken. Which would you prefer next, the rest of your ribs? An arm, or maybe a leg?"

In an effort to raise his head, blood spat out from between his dry lips, hitting the concrete radiating with heat from the wrath of the sun. "I'm not….not with—"

"With anyone? I heard you the first time, but eyes don't lie," disregarded, the leader was to stroke his hair, her touch poison to which he recoiled from. "She looked very beautiful, even by nigger standards. It's not right that you should keep her all for yourself; women like her are needed. We can give her a good home with us like she deserves; we'll break her into being one of the flock soon enough."

Sharply inhaling, cracked ribs splitting nerves as hoarse laughter broke from him. Luke was fast to regret such actions as pain silenced him again. "That, that always what it boils down to with you folks? Fuck anythin' on two legs? Just a bunch of animals!"

A fist collided to his cheekbone, _crack_ , pain buzzed and throbbed. The woman's muted voice shouted at him from behind of walls of his skull. "Animals!? This is for my sons' sakes, their futures! What fucking right do you have judging us!?"

Luke spat out more blood, some satisfaction gained from those red splotches landing on the woman's shoes. "Ca…callin' it, by…by how it is…"

"You piece of—" the mother's son, Sideburns, kicked him in the back, right in the kidney. Before further violence could be inflicted, they were interrupted by the sound of music, like soft bells. It was the melody of a music box…Jack and Jill.

It came from the direction of the thrift store.

Luke's memory of doing a sweep of the building flooded back, of the emergency backdoor being unlocked, the one that led out to the woods, and to behind the alleyways between the stores.

 _Clem!_

A loud whistle, the female bandit alerted her two scouting sons departing out from the ice cream parlor next doors. The shapes of the two men were visible in Luke's vision advancing towards where the nursery rhyme played in the thrift store.

"She's up to something! Watch yourselves, and no damaging the goods! We need her _alive_!"

By their mother's orders, the men stormed the building, guns ready. Few precautions, and overconfident. Foolish or experienced?

"No! Clem get—" a second kick, this time delivered by the bandit leader right to his gut. The wind knocked out of Luke, his lungs refused to draw in a single breath.

" _Clem?_ That's her name? What's that short for, Clemence? Clementine?" the woman asked; another kick coming when he didn't answer, harder this time. "Hey I am talking to you!"

Oxygen, Luke couldn't take it in fast enough, ignoring the pains from damaged ribs wanting to squeeze every breath out from his lungs again.

 _A rifle firing, ears ringing. A tumble down into darkness; screams from faraway—_

Not again, not a second time. He couldn't…

"Going to give you one last warning girly!" the mother yelled impatiently. "These hide and seek games stop _now!_ Come quietly, you hear me Clemence!?"

Her sons in the thrift store were to do the same, Luke's ears picking up the calls for pussycat inside the building, _mocking_.

Nothing.

"Why am I not surprised?" a chuckle, the mother knelt back down, much closer to him now. The sun overhead burned into Luke's retinas, with the woman's face residing in shadows, that smile of hers almost satanic. "God, look at you, so weak. What kind of man are you anyway? Can't even get the _man_ part down right can you; gotta have the young missus doing all the work."

"S…suu…"

"What?" the woman leaned farther in. "Louder please hon; I didn't catch that."

The crack of laughter from her son, a mere couple of steps behind him, both were crowded in. No show from the other two, with the melody of the music box within the store dying…one shot. Push Luke did, succeeding after a struggle to lean up onto one forearm. Blood wiped from beneath his nose, a trail left on the back of his hand, he let the arm fall cumbersome on his hip, dazed eyes set on the mother's own jeering venomous ones.

Strained but clear, he vocalized a single word.

"Sorry."

An untimely cue, a sudden loud crash from inside the thrift store brought about new alarm. Somebody yelling, a man, followed by another. More crashes like glass shattering, yells turning to high pitched screams, unidentifiable of the gender. Within seconds it occurred, and it was all to become what was a moment's diversion in distracting the mother and her son, the diversion he needed.

To the back of his belt beneath his jacket, tucked under a dirty brown shirt, Luke pulled that concealed knife free; an old keepsake.

" _Come on_ _Boy Scout,_ _show me what you got."_

Blood pounding in his ears, he grabbed the mother around the throat and drove the knife into her head. The woman let out a strangled cry, hands clawing at his wrist only to quickly go limp. She fell backwards, her body not having hit the concrete before the shouts sounded from behind him.

"No! You fucking—" over Luke's shoulder, he tracked the woman's son raising his rifle, to not shoot, but to strike him.

Rolling round onto his other hip, he delivered a kick to the knee of that bandit, a massive _crack_ from the joint causing the man to go toppling over. The advantage was gained and with fast thinking Luke twisted around to yanked the beretta free from the dead leader's gun holster, pulling the trigger on the temporally stunned bandit.

 _ **Click!**_

Luke should've known by the weight.

No bullets.

A foot slammed into to his face, knocking Luke onto his back, a useless gun to fall away from reach. Sideburns was on top of him in seconds, the side of the rifle's barrel pushing down onto Luke's neck.

"Bastard! BASTARD!" the words were screamed down at him, spit with foul breath and eyes full of pure rage as the weapon was pushed down harder, strangulation the full intent. "You're dead! I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU! YOU MURDERING PIECE OF SHIT!"

Luke grabbed at the rifle, no avail in wrenching it away. Too strong, the bandit's good knee dug into Luke's injured ribs and he choked out a cry, losing with it much of his air supply. Lungs on fire, he gasped for air, but none reached them. His legs kicked but Luke could do nothing, and letting go would only kill him faster.

Her knife, he needed…

The risk was taken. One hand released off the rifle, his arm outstretched to its limit over to the dead woman's corpse nearby him. Fingers grazed her hair, her scalp, to where the knife's handled was lodged in the bone, the _skull_. His teeth gritted, his all given, but Luke couldn't get a decent enough grip to wrench the knife out.

The bandit kept shouting at him, crying, face red.

"You're gonna pay! You and that little bitch! YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD! _"_

Luke's vision went unfocused, his lungs at bursting point, head spinning…

Boots pounding on concrete, somebody came running full throttle. The pressure on Luke's throat reduced, the bandit letting out a surprised noise, reacting too slowly to the blurry figure to come charging out from the mist over Luke's sight with a ferocious battle cry inhuman to the ears.

No mercy.

A fast swing of the arm, something shiny was brought down on bandit's back. With a howling scream of pain heard, the man was kicked off of Luke, and he was freed. No time to thank the gods, he was able to breathe and couldn't do so fast enough, coughing and sucking in deep quick breaths of air.

Through the haze, the attacking figure jumped upon the downed bandit and struck the man again, _again_. Blood curdling screams of agony, drowning under the loud violent hacking of a blade, down through flesh, into bone, the actions fast and savage to no end.

Luke's hand pressed to his sore neck, eyes sharpened, quick to clench shut to warm liquid splattered across his face, _blood_.

"St…stop… _Clem!_ "

The strikes from the blade on the dead bandit ceased, the young woman's heavy labored breathing loud to all that was now quiet. Stepping off from the fresh corpse, Clem soon found her way over, dropping down on her knees beside him. The smell of death like perfume, she was donned in blood that wasn't her own, splattered over skin and clothes in a tribal war paint, with that old baseball cap having seen better days.

The sight of her broke him.

"Are you okay?" Clem asked, with a sting of pain on her tongue from an injury his battered brain was slow to spot. Stabbed, a flesh wound exposed from a tear on the denim jacket on her upper arm. A superficial wound, the bleeding was minimum, but it'd need stitches. She'd taken a few hits, left cheek and lower chin with prominent redness; there would be bruising.

Luke managed to sit himself up, nursing a migraine hammering into his head like nails.

"You shouldn't've done that," He said. "Gone, that far…"

Aversion, Clem turned away as if to look at the disfigured body of the bandit over her shoulder, the dead man pooling in a thick red liquid as was the deceased bandit's mother. Luke's friend sheathed the blood-encrusted tantō blade, and reached for him.

"That didn't stop _you._ "

"Yeah, but—urm!" he withered at the pain stemming from the right side of his chest, an aiding hand recoiling. "I-It's just my ribs, I'm fine."

"Sure," unconvinced Clem was, remaining so in helping Luke to his feet like the foolish drunk he may as well be now. The young woman let go when certain he could stand on his own. "We should get out of here while we can; they're walker bait, and there might be more of their friends around."

"What about their guns?"

"They're not loaded," a surprised look altered the answer of his friend, as she clung to her injured arm. "The guns were all bark and no bite; I um, I found out the hard way."

"Fuck…yeah, yeah me too."

Bullets, such things were a scarcity nowadays. A cleverly staged hoax, that's all it was, and it brought on a sickly feeling to the gut, more than nausea. It was brewed up from the thought such trickery might've allowed those bastards to get away with their scheming.

The woman's words ran through his mind, and Luke was quick to be rid of them.

"I don't think anybody else is comin', or they'd be here playin' their game too," a shortened raspy breath, Luke pressed a light hand to his ribs under his jacket, the area painful beneath the fabric of his shirt, from bruising and much worse. His nose had stopped bleeding at the very least. "I say we search 'em first…might, might have somethin' useful."

"But you're hurt," Clem protested.

"So are you."

"Luke—"

" _I'm fine_."

An obvious statement it was to notice Luke wasn't believed. His friend kept to a ready stance, as if prepared to catch him might he keel over. He mustn't have been a pretty sight to look at, as bad as he felt.

"Don't be makin' that face; _ain't_ droppin' dead on ya just yet. We search 'em now, Clem; we've got time for that."

"…fine."

A risky call, it's one to bear fruit. Two boxes of matches, a half used box of water purification tablets, bandages and a small can of peas. In death those bandits contributed to helping lives other than their own. The thought didn't bring much comfort when crippled in pain and a concussion setting in though. His concentration kept straying and needed to be put in its place. Yet it was Clem who proved him right. Sideburn's rifle appeared in working order, no exterior damage, but the weapon was lighter than anticipated like the mother's beretta. They weren't loaded. A relief there was not to be adding bullet wounds to their list of injuries.

After a few tugs, the knife lodged in the mother's head came free. A few wipes of the blade on the leg of his jeans removing much of the blood, Luke's gaze lingered longer than need be at the small marking of a skull visible above the hilt on the knife.

"H…how'd you know?"

"Know what?"

He took the dead woman's empty beretta, undoing the straps for the holster on her leg. They were things that may come in handy, with the firearm being the lightest of the lot to carry.

"His gun, that it weren't loaded like the others."

Clem hesitated, her back staying to him. She carried on bandaging up her arm to prevent infection, tying the thing tight as flies were quick to flock upon those corpses.

"I didn't."

Stiffly Luke retrieved his other knife from the ground, and a moment later with it his machete. As his friend returned from the alleyway, her sling backpack recovered, he and Clem returned to the thrift store. Once inside, the smell hit him greater than on the street or on his friend: the stench of death. The carnage was evident in seconds, with those shelves overturned, broken glass on the floor from a shattered display case by the counter, with the record styled music box lying broken inside with its discs.

No quick clean kills here.

The store was a mess, a blood bath with red splashes sprayed on racks of shelves and clothes. A right arm hacked cleaned off laid on the tiles next to a rifle, a heavy blood trail leading down one of the aisles. Luke discovered the butch man from earlier, _butchered_ , his body crumbled at a twisted angle on the floor. His jugular had been lacerated, and his head…

Lightly Clem brushed passed him, slowly stepping into the mess to search the corpse.

"The other one's further back," she was to say, patting down the man's pockets. "He's not going anywhere."

Luke understood what she meant soon enough.

To the back of the store, near to where there was a door with a 'staff only' sign, there a luger was on a floor, empty too. Stepping over piles of the very books he'd flicked through a short time before, there it was, the second body down the last aisle. It was the baby-faced bandit with the bandana; the man's legs were trapped by an old heavy bookcase, his intestines hung out from his split open belly. There was a stab wound, right through the chest, a torn shirt soaked—

"Urh...wu…"

The splutter of blood out from between parched lips, the ragged rise and fall of a chest, they weren't the symptoms of reanimation as Luke mistook. He regained the step taken back, shocked fading from finding the bandit still breathing. The man barely clung to life, staring cloudy-eyed up at Luke, a plea for mercy within them as if his sins committed were redundant and he were only an innocent now.

How many people looked up to those bandits the same way? How many deserved mercy of which was never given to them?

Prolonged no longer, Luke removed the knife from his belt a final time and rigidly knelt down. Grabbing the dying bandit around throat, a look of wild panic and desperation were quickly snuffed out with the man's life as the knife broke through the skull of the bandit's left temple into that diseased brain. He watched as the dim light in those eyes gradually went, turning glassy and hollow as the bandit's body gave a few twitches upon the knife being ripped out, and nothing more.

Luke didn't feel a thing.

* * *

He felt every mile of that trip in his aching body. There was no time for rest, for that was their rule. Potential bandit territory wasn't where a person wanted to be, and whether that group was alone or not, distancing themselves from bad happenings as much as possible always was the best course of action.

They chose to pick someplace far off from their confrontation with the bandits to patch up, diverging off the road down some railway tracks overgrown with long grass and weeds. They passed a burnt-out train and its carriages on the way, derailed and overturned, all left to rust. Charred skeleton remains of dead passengers were inside, a sight seen too often, left over disasters in the decaying old world, the norm.

With no encounters from the dead or living in those hours walking, to a small rundown train depot they winded up at. It was a derelict one-story building that had taken a great battering from time and the elements. There wasn't much to behold inside, broken furniture falling apart that was good for firewood and nothing else. He and Clem would be sleeping rough on the floor again as per usual, but it was a roof and four walls, with an extra saving grace of a stream nearby allowing for them to filter and refill their water bottles.

The pair sitting on upturned plastic crates, Clem tensed up every time he threaded the needle through, slowly sewing together the cut flesh on her right arm one stitch at a time. The bandit's knife had created a deep gash, but not deep enough to be life-threatening; the wound was properly cleaned to prevent infection, and with time it would heal.

They were lucky today.

" _Hrm_...can you hurry up? It stings," Clem was to ask half-whimpery, half-irritable. Despite such complaining, pain tolerance was better in her than Luke whenever it was him needing stitches. In spite of that knowledge, he still took extra care.

"Almost done."

"But, you're not even halfway."

"Gettin' there."

"You sew like a nanny."

Luke gave a short throaty laugh, the pain it brought one side of his ribcage enough to end it. He readjusted his grip on her arm, concentrating. "If you don't quit complain', I'll d…do a crappy job of it, then you can have yerself a matchin' pair."

A grumble, Clem's fingers brushed over the jagged bumps of scarring on her left forearm. It was the mark of their first and only attempt at keeping a dog, of a stray that turned on a ten-year-old girl without fair warning or inklings that it would. The mutt had known to have done wrong, laying low and still in the corner of the kitchen, whining with sad brown eyes and ears droopy. That wasn't good enough; they couldn't risk another incident happening again, or it coming back. Led out by Pete with its tail between its legs, the stray was shot out in the woods away from the cabin, before they could even give it a proper name.

Pete never let him know peace for that incident until his dying day, as Luke was the one to let the animal in. It was the first of many scars and mistakes.

Clem hissed at the needle being threaded through again. "Are, are you gonna be o-okay? You looked ready to black out before. You had me worried."

"I'm fine. Just bruises, nothin' time won't deal with," was what Luke assured, not all to be the truth. His nose was fractured, and some swelling to one eye. Breathing a frequent reminder of damaged ribs, with aches and pains elsewhere, and a stabbing migraine included in on that. It was nothing more lethal than the cards he'd been dealt in the past. "Trust me, looks worse than it is."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"But I am; I shouldn't have waited so- _hrm_ , so long," Clem clutched at the edge of the crate, gritting her teeth as another stitch was sewn. "I thought they were going to kill you."

"Thought so too," Luke echoed.

Her denim jacket rested on the floor by their gear, still stained in the blood of corrupt men. Clem would have to do her part to scrub it off, as with the mess on her jeans and baseball cap, right down to her boots. Her clothes would remain stained; it would never come out, like always. Death could be many things, a release to end pain, a means of revenge, the act of survival, or the unfair natural order of things that stole those a person loved away. Taking a life was not one to be done so lightly, but times of naivety were past. Kill or be killed, as they so callously said, and yet…

"You're mad at me."

Those quiet words caused the needle to be held steady, his grip on her arm remaining no tighter than need be.

"No," Luke said.

"That's a lie," Clem responded with.

"…yeah, it is," he said back.

Clem's hands wrung together on her lap, the fingernails still harboring specks of dirt beneath. Luke saw her left hand missing the nails on the ring and index finger, broken clean off in the attack hours earlier. They would take time to grow back.

His friend sucked in her lower lip, rapidly blinking to banish salty tears.

"I was scared, Luke…I couldn't, just, just let them get away with it. I had to do _something_."

He can't comfort her by any means, leave a needle dangling from a thread in her arm to do so. A light touch to her shoulder was the best Luke could manage.

"I know that. I just don't want _you_ havin' to make that call."

"I'm not a kid."

"Don't change a thing."

The discussion lurked; it was one brought up and argued over a handful of times before and with no resolve between them, an argument he once had had with another. 'You'd've done the same for me,' is always Clementine's defense to which he can never deny, but her brutality is what fears him most for her.

They couldn't have this conversation again, not now whilst his head was splitting and his energy for reasoning at its weakest. He didn't need it.

"Thanks anyways, for savin' my ass back there. I mean that," Luke chose to say, as Clem was to wipe her tears away, finding an acute distraction in the cracked glass panes in-between the sash bars of the depot. Beyond that window, train tracks ran for miles swallowed up by the woodlands; a never ending road.

"Don't mention it...just- _ow_ , add it to growing list of things you owe me for."

"Will do."

Luke stitched away in silence, a few hisses of pain escaping his friend until the last thread was tugged through and he was done binding up the skin. A cut to that thread soon to be knotted, proper bandaging of that arm began, and as he was to do that, Clem was to tilt her head his way when it was securely tied in place, her cheeks dry with tear streaks after wiping her face.

"No bullshitting me, you're alright?" she asked.

Pain ricocheted through webbed nerves ends across his rib cage when standing, almost hunched, a headrush following from sitting too long. Rest, he needed to…

"Yeah…uh, feel a little crappy, but I'll be okay."

The needle sterilized for a second time, everything used for treating Clementine's injury was put away as it should be in their first-aid-kit. Luke rummaged through, picking out the last remaining ibuprofen tablets from other pills, and something to clean his face up with, the cuts—

Dizziness took him off guard, a sudden tightening in his abdomen, fluid rising up in his throat.

Shit.

Luke made a dash for the door, forcing the thing open, and no sooner afterwards did he throw up. Little came out, the digested remains of leek soup spilled on those dirty stone steps. The cool breeze was welcomed, but not the sun in his eyes. He stayed put there, holding onto the wooden frame, leaned against it, every cough torture to damaged ribs.

He'd learned to breathe again by the time hands were to grab him from around the elbow, steering him gently back to sit down on an upturned crate once again, that ugly green plastic making him queasy. Pills placed in his hand, he swallowed them down with the bottled water offered to him. Eyelids heavy, Luke surrendered to the day's toll on him, not putting up any resistance over his friend choosing to tend to the cuts on his face instead of him.

A wet cloth dabbed against the sore scraps on his right cheek, over the jagged indent of a diagonal scar long set into the skin as small stones, dirt and blood were washed away. He could've dozed off…couldn't really, but he wanted to.

"Pinocchio."

"What?"

Clem refused to look at him directly, eyes focused on lightly dabbing one side of his nose, more blood to come away stained on that cloth.

"Pinocchio," she said again in clarity, her expression sullen, distant. "It's your name now."

* * *

All these years learning to adapt and survive, and Clem was always three steps ahead. The younger generation always did pick skills up faster than the old, and it was no different with this way of life. Luke wished that weren't so, that they were more at equals than odds. He still held his own, had to or he would have long been dead, but there was no denying age had anything to do with it. Clementine was more built for this life, and there were more times he owed her, than she owed him.

Jane, she had been the same.


	2. Carnivores

A/N: When posting this, there's been news on Season 3 in the recent months, and I'm excited. I'm still a little apprehensive on how good the game is going to be, but it's definitely put me in a much more cheerful mood for writing Walking Dead stories, and I'm happy for that. Sooo, I figured I may as well get back to business.

Enough from me now! It's time for a change of perspective to see what's going on in Sweetpea's head, and introduce two people I've dying for you to meet.

Special thanks to Lurker128 for being a beta for this chapter.

* * *

 _ **The Walking Dead  
**_ _ **Tacit**_

 _Chapter 2: Carnivores_

* * *

It's a white-tailed deer, a young one. It's not so much a fawn anymore and its spots are gone, but not fully grown, with no mother around. Tiny horns protruded through its head, a buck. Clementine wouldn't have known the animal was there, if not for it thrashing about, rattling the barbed wire fence strung between the old wooden posts near the train tracks; so fortunate Clementine was to be sat outside, not far from small depot port building to hear its distress.

A noose to the deer's neck, wrapped around its hind legs and body, the rusted barbed wire cut through fur and deep into the flesh. The young buck must've tried leaping over the fence and got itself tangled up, and so there it was trapped and exhausted, lucky that no walkers or coyotes were here to find it first, or they would have given the thing an unkindly death.

' _Just let it go; he might make it,'_ a naïve voice reasoned inside Clementine's head. The deer thrashed about, spooked by the human presence, its breathing fast, the brown of its eyes wide and open at her where she stood still in place.

All those years ago as a child, sneaking out into the woods at the back of her house…so many times sat quietly there by herself, watching chickadees, pigeons, rabbits and squirrels; only once she saw a doe with her fawn, the pair spooked off into the boscage by Mom calling for Clementine back at the house for dinner. Such beautiful creatures, a beauty traded in for a good meal. It was the way things had to be.

The buck kicked its tangled rear legs, thrashing more erratic as Clementine moved in closer, its freedom driven further from reach by the barb wired tightening in the coil around its neck. The wound oozing fresh blood, the animal's struggles ended as it let out a distressed bleat in likeness to a lamb. Its will to live couldn't defy the impossible, for the deer wouldn't survive. Its injury would become infected and slowly would bring about a fever, and the buck would die. So she's doing the right thing, and food is food she reminded herself.

Her tantō drawn, Clementine chose to end it quickly, striking the buck in the head with that twelve-inch blade a safe distance from those strong animal's kicking legs. A few violent spasms and the deer went still, the blood profound, gushing as the blade became dislodged from the cracked open skull left, brain tissue exposed. It could've been worse, she could've knocked it out and skinned it alive, left the deer to wake strung up before it was beaten and burnt with cigarette butts, slow to die while being laughed and jeered at by drunken men over its suffering. Sick amusement from cruelty, she wished it nonexistent; the human condition awakened too many monsters.

A hand outstretched, Clementine rested it down on the deer's still ribcage, the fur thick and coarse with dirt.

Still warm...

 _She'd ran her hand along the tail of the red squirrel lying dead on its back on the kitchen counter in the cabin. Fur so fluffy and soft, but the body cold, the critter's mouth slanted half open, front teeth and tongue exposed with tiny eyes wide and dry, staring into nothingness. From the poke of one back leg with her finger, Clementine felt a stiffness to the critter's limb: rigor mortis. Three others squirrels were beside it with one rabbit, all carrying wounds by snare traps around their throats._

" _Do we have to eat them? They're so cute."_

 _A gravelly laugh, the old hunter in his old green coat scooped up that dead red squirrel, washing it in a bowl of cold water._

" _Don't go bein' a sissy on me now little darlin'. No different to any other meat we've eaten," Pete had said, setting the small mammal down on the chopping board. Like a natural in the skills he'd spent decades harnessing, Pete went about skinning that squirrel, as if every action were written down to muscle memory. "Folks've gotten soft, long did before all this. All fine and dandy eatin' their roasts with their beefs and their turkeys, but kill it and prepare it themselves? Nothin' but a bunch of sissies."_

 _A cute squirrel no longer, a tiny hideous creature of slimy muscles and blood rested on the chopping board. Repulsion flared in her young mind, but Pete went further, cutting off the squirrel's head, and slicing open that tiny stomach to remove those miniature organs._

" _Should've seen Luke and my nephew when they were younglings; took those boys out nearly every huntin' season. Got them to hike and camp out in every kind of weather you can imagine too, and you can sure as hell bet they hated me for it, but they did it. Now adventure's' one thing, but surviving's another. If you'd told them to skin and chop up something for a meal, both'd go green in the face every time; couldn't stomach it for years, not even skinning a fish. Took 'em forever to man up and do it without squirmin'."_

 _Clementine's fingers were on the edge of the counter, only tall enough for eyes to peer over._

" _Maybe they thought the animals were cute too," she'd said._

" _Maybe, but this ain't no world to be thinkin' like that no more, especially when you gotta to keep the old ticker goin'," Pete said with the tap to his chest. The hunting knife set down, the skinned, gutted squirrel was dumped onto a plate, and so was the next one picked up to be washed, and put upon the chopping board. A high stool nearby got pulled up to the counter by the hunter._

" _Tell you what Clementine, how about givin' this a go yourself?" Pete had hoisted her up onto the stool, placing the knife in her small hands. "Need to be learnin' this sooner or later; think you got what it takes?"_

The deer carcass strung up to the high fence with the legs chopped off at the knees, Clementine dealt with the organs, being sure to hold onto the heart, liver and kidneys before she was to skin the dead buck. The heat of that sun weighing down on her back, she worked quickly, the extra time spent afterwards decapitating the young deer's head and sticking its body on a wooden spit. With a small lightweight stew pot for the organs, all was prepared for the buck to be roasted on a fire contained within a derelict rail yard building nearby. Like previous meals cooked here, the enclosed walls would contain some of the smell from the cooking, lowering the risk of attracting walkers or animals, while that tall collapsed metal roof split open to a blue sky allowed in the oxygen to feed the flames.

However, no ideal place was this to seek shelter. Decrepit, the building was in shambles around her, a common sight like everywhere wasting away from the hands of time. No trains were here, only sheets of metal from the damaged roof, rotting planks of woods, bits of bricks, concrete, rusting barrels and vulgar graffiti. _**FUCK THE ROTTERS,**_ one wall shouted with skulls sprayed in a shade of deep red. _**DROWNING IN OBLIVION,**_ shouted another, in the same red with no style. The words around her were wild and manic; the faded messages aged over cracked cement. Nobody had been here for years. No less, Clementine stayed alert as ever as she was always taught to be, her knees drawn to her chest where she sat some distance away from the fire the venison cooked upon, preferring the coolness the building brought after being out in the humidity for so long.

Her empty stomach rumbled, with her troubled mind at unrest. Clementine couldn't relax, nor rest her eyes. The old hunting knife found its way into her hands, being turned over and over within them, the blood of that buck stained dry to the blade. Slowly with one hand, the end of the knife's hilt became pressed against her forehead, and she watched the flames burn, until something was to catch her eye, unnoticed down in the rubble she was to have overlooked in those passing days. It brought her to her feet, wandering over to that far corner of the warehouse.

An aerosol can? Not quite. The can eroded by rust, but the nozzle still worked, confirmed to her when a quick test at arm's length sprayed out a red mist after a few sputters. It was paint. What use did she have for paint? She could give no meaningful answer.

The graffiti spoke to her again, of people vandalizing things nobody gave a shit about. Like messages on trees, carving words into the bark, scarring the names of lovers or dates recorded before she was even born. The human need to be remembered, for somebody to know they were once there, and defy that void that took them all in the end.

Who would remember what was never recorded?

Clementine found a free spot on one of the concrete beams, the weight of that can almost dropped by heavy thoughts to abandon such ideas in her mind of using it. Giving that spray a good shake, a finger briefly poised on the nozzle over that bare concrete, she set out on writing the only thing she was willing to share, should any stumble across this rail yard building too, someday.

The message small and slanted, it said all it needed to.

 _ **Can't go back to yesterday**_

* * *

The handle pressed down by her elbow, the door was shoved open with her hip thereafter. The resting figure of her friend jolted up from the floor of the train depot, the man reaching for the machete at his side. Sleepy eyes fixing on her, the alarm in them slipped away with his energy, and he was to stiffly lay back down with a relieved breath.

"Didn't know you stepped out," Luke said, draping his forearm over his eyes. Unnoticed by the heavy sleeper, Clementine was gone more than an hour, but she didn't bother explaining. She lugged in that young deer carcass still on the wooden spit, a small pot of organs held in the other hand, all fully cooked. The smell of meat filled the depot building, welcomed by her friend who made an effort not to go drift off back to sleep. He was hungry, just like her.

Three days after the bandit family attack and Luke was still not that much better off. Clementine's injuries were superficial, but not all his were and they were low on meds. With a nose broken, the inflammation hadn't gone down, but would heal of its own accord. The migraines Luke complained of still bit at his brain the last time she checked in, troubling her with unwanted fears of hemorrhages in the body occurring from taking such a battering. He kept needing sleep, and unsure Clementine was if that was good thing or bad. Bruises were scattered all over in odd places too, like hers were, but Luke's were worse. Bruised shadows under his eyes from the broken nose, with one slightly swollen more than the other, the white sclera of the eye having gone partially red. The worse suspects were to be where she'd caught sight of the purple and red patches on his torso when changing shirts, more prominent on the right side.

Broken ribs played him up the most, kept him in constant pain from the unknown seriousness of the damage that might've punctured a lung in a much deadlier scenario. It was out of their hands. The best medical advice they had was for plenty of rest, and for him to keep taking deep breaths among those unhealthy shallow ones to prevent chest infections or pneumonia. Relieved Clementine was, not much else got broken by those bastards.

"How are you feeling?" She asked.

There was laughter, short and wheezing out by its end.

"If I was a broken piñata? P-Pretty good, only hurts when I breathe," her friend answered, enticed enough by the smell of food to sit up on the floor, a head nursed in his hand. "That deer?"

"A buck, a young one."

"How'd you—"

Clementine set the pot down on an old desk, followed by the deer. Her knife out, she cut away at the meat around the shoulder. "It was stuck on a fence and making a lot of noise. It wasn't going to make it."

"You should've woke me," he said.

"You needed to rest, and I needed to think," Clementine told him, almost forgetful to add, "I was careful."

"Yeah well, careful ain't enough these days," drawing a shortened sigh, Luke was to massage his fingers through his hair all way to the very back, those few gray strands visible against colors of chestnut in the light let in through the depot's dusty windows. "So, you up for sharin' any of that?"

Cutting away at the meat, the deer's limb loosened slice by slice.

"No…just, thought I'd stand here and eat it all myself."

"Charmin'."

Clementine saved him the trouble of getting up, still to a wear smile when delivering the front leg of that buck into his open hands, gratitude shown by the man.

"Thanks."

The venison meat was more tender than any other venison Clementine tasted. All those times hunting game and they'd never chosen to kill any young deer or mothers with fawns, even with the world being as it was; it was their conscious choice. There was more than enough meat here for them both, and after days on a diet formed from foraging chamomiles and chickweeds in the woods, to the cattails growing at the local stream, that buck was a blessing. They hadn't eaten venison in over a year.

"Swear, gotta get ourselves a hold of some guns, the workin' kind; damn sure miss eatin' this rich a meat," Luke was to say while tucking into some ribs, tearing the meat off right from the bone. The pair of them were starved carnivores, and nothing could be wasted.

"We could try a bow," pieces of the buck's heart were in Clementine's hands, sticky on her fingers. "Or, go into fence building and catch more deer like that."

"Hah, either'll do long as it fills our bellies," Luke said, with a crooked grin. "Ought to've done some survival 101 on bow craftin' before all this; thought they'd've written the book on it somewhere."

Clementine popped a piece of deer heart in her mouth, chewing away.

"We'll find one, eventually. There has to be some left out there."

"Yeah, agreed."

What was there of the leftovers was cut away from the bone and put into the small stew pot. Some curing salts and sugar poured in with the lid left closed, last of the formula they carried to preserve the meat, allowing it to last long enough for another day, or longer if need be. The remains of deer carcass's bones were taken out of the depot, and dumped inside down a manhole some distance away from the building. Such a bleak sight it was to peer down the bottom of that manhole, seeing those brown picked bones, along with the skinned fur, the hooves and head of that deer to have been dumped down there earlier. Already rats were feasting on it, the eyes gouged.

Clementine couldn't risk burying it. Bears would sniff it out too easily.

"W—what's wrong?" Luke asked, stood nearby. Insistent he was to go along, though little there was that he could do than be an extra pair of eyes and ears. A good motto.

She shrugged it off, and bent down to drag the heavy manhole cover over. She closed the manhole shut permanently this time, the thing thudding as it was slotted into place. Thoughts of a crypt came to mind, and other things…

"Nothing," Clementine said. "It's not important."

In due time the day drew closer to its end, the sun dipped low in the sky, framing itself in one of the train depot building's windows and lighting up specks of dust in the air. Outside it was still, remaining so all that afternoon up until evening's approach. A few hours and it would be night soon, too soon.

Little discussed after eating, her friend resisted the urge for more rest and sought escapism in the book he was reading, titled _The Catcher in the Rye_. Clementine sought escapism of her own with a rubik's cube, twisting the thing until she managed to make two faces of the cube orange and green, and no more. Years carried with her, and she never figured out how to solve it.

The rubik's cube left to one side, she decided it time to make repairs to her baseball cap. Some old stitches at the back were coming loss in recent days, the fraying D already peeling off again. She needed to fix it, and so into her backpack, Clementine rummaged around for that small tube of glue she kept a hold of for such hat emergencies. In among the few things in her bag she could call her own, photographs were found and brought out instead of glue. The torn photograph of Lee, the man who saved her life, with the opportunity long lost to return this to him. Lee, whatever the time of day he was there, smiling happy and with pride…

She had nothing to be proud about.

The other photos were family related, the first taken by a professional photographer. There sitting on a comfy rug in a studio, Clementine and her parents were lined up for the shot. All staged, just props, cherished to Clementine mostly by her parent's love of it, strong enough to have framed on display in their house; that was only reason she chosen to take it years ago when revisiting the place she once called home, for the memory wasn't a fond one when being frequently told by the photographer to keep smiling when she didn't want to.

The last photo was from her old bedroom, tiny punchers in all four corners from where it was pinned up on the board by her desk. The picture was taken at the beach during summer, in full view of the ocean and a pier in the background; she and her parents were together in it, with the photo having being taken by an elderly couple out strolling that beautiful coast. Mom's arms were folded around Dad, her sunglasses up in her head and Dad's favorite baseball cap on his. Clementine was huddled between him, maybe four or five years of age, a red plastic pinwheel clutched in her small hands, blurred from twirling in the wind. Smiles natural, eyes squinted faintly from the sun behind the camera with all imperfections allowed to be.

Clementine could still smell it, the salty breeze from the ocean, could still feel those cool foaming waves rolling up over her bare feet, her toes sinking into the wet sand. There was a memory of Mom and Dad there in that place, holding both her hands as they walked along the beach, lifting her up every time a wave washed up on the shore. One, two, three, they would count, and up she'd go, giggling as if it were the most fun thing in the world. Her parents were laughing, stood so tall compared to her, her hands small in theirs...

She couldn't hear their voices anymore.

"Can we go to the coast?"

Her friend looked up from his book, brows stitched, eyes seeking an answer.

"When you're feeling better, can we go there?" Clementine said, slipping the photos away into her bag, "Just, you know, _somewhere?_ "

The edge of a page creased, Luke's book closed shut.

"Any reasons to why?" he asked quizzically.

A shrug was all Clementine gave him at first. The tube of glue taken out, her nails picked at the red lid. "I don't know, not really…I just want to see it. It's been a forever since we last went anywhere with a beach," hanging on her friend's silence, she broke it. "Please?"

A warm glow in those eyes, Luke turned to stiffly pull at the strap of his rucksack, dragging the bag of his along the floor over towards him. "N-Never said we couldn't; got anywhere specific?"

"Tybee Island," Clementine said, too quickly.

"So, not just anywhere," Luke lightly answered, taking out that old worn map. "Never heard of this Tybee before; where is it?"

"A little outside Savannah."

Her friend paused. There was a look of surprise. "That's pretty far."

"Yeah, I know."

"Hm…well, pretty far whichever way you look at it in coast terms," scratching at stubble near a scarred cheek, he went on with unfolding that map of the United States, keeping it upright after the pain of damaged ribs were triggered from leaning too far forward to rest it on the floorboards. Clementine scooched on over, that baseball cap left to rest on her lap as so to hold one half of the map with Luke so it could be studied.

The Kentucky state, their current location, she pointed down lower on the map, to the coast right next to Savannah. "It's somewhere around there. I know it doesn't say it, but Tybee Island's there."

Luke nodded acknowledgement to it, focus set on those names of major roads and cities. "Judgin' where we're at, right around here," He pointed up at Kentucky, a hitch in his voice upon drawing a breath, "gonna take a month or so, less if—less, if we stay on the move each day; any detours or hiccups, it'll take longer."

Walker herds, bandits, terrain…nothing new.

"So we can go?" Clementine asked.

Together, they folded the map away.

"Sure. Need to be movin' down south anyways; get to the warmer climate before winter sets in. Don't reckon we ought to go pushin' it, just take our time." A faint looping smile to her, Luke added. "Probably won't make it in time for yer birthday, if that's what you were hopin' for."

The baseball cap held protectively in her hands, Clementine uncapped the glue and went to work repairing the letter D back in its rightful place.

"I can wait," she said, feeling a small lift in the corners of her mouth, and in her spirits.

A goal was set.

* * *

 _Communities, large to small groups of people, Clementine hated them all. They couldn't be trusted, however friendly they maybe, or if they had children; the time of trusting others was long over._ _When it was just her, Pete and Luke at that cabin in Virginia, it was easy to get used to that, being locked in their own small world in those surrounding woodlands, living by their ways, their rules. She missed her socks getting soaked down in the river and how her shoes squelched when pulling fish traps out. She missed sitting on the cabin porch eating wild berries and nuts while she watched for wildlife. She...she missed learning to play chess with Pete, and losing to him, but always trying that bit harder to beat him the next time._

 _Clementine had good memories there, what few a child could get in these times, and what she had been through up until that point. She didn't know anything about those two men, but they still went out of their way to look after her, just like Lee had done when her parents didn't come home. She had nobody and felt lost, and they took her in. They saved her life._

 _Years were to pass there, she got bigger, and her clothes shrunk, too small for her frame like the shoes that crunched up her feet. There wasn't anything around for miles; there were no houses or towns to scavenge from, so they made use of the clothes left behind from the cabin's previous owners. Often was it that Clementine would be walking around in teenage pants made for boys, the things cut off at knees so they didn't bundle around her ankles, and with a belt around the waist to stop them falling down. Shirt sleeves were rolled up so she could use her hands, and collars adjusted so they didn't slide over her shoulders. On many days, did Clementine roam the cabin barefoot, big shoes too much of a nuisance, for growing was a nuisance in and of itself._

 _She looked like a boy._

 _When turning eleven, after two years of only her, Pete and Luke living alone without any human contact, the increasing walker activity in the area drove them out. They moved on, leaving behind those woods and their cabin to seek someplace else to settle. Many weeks later, they met supply runners, made up of a group of ten or so people that happened to catch them on the road. At first their leader offered to trade, but then they were to offer sanctuary in their community, inviting the trio to come back with them. Pete and Luke accepted the offers, the group's words so persuasive, particularly those from the leader of that community that just so happened to be man leading the supply run that day._

 _William Carver was not one to sit around in his castle. "So what's the boy's name? Rather quiet back there; not said a word. He hard of hearing? Simple?"_

" _He's Ethan; picked him up outside Savannah near two years ago now," Pete replied. "And he's alright; noggin's not broken, just not one for many words. You know what kids are like."_

 _The conversation came from the front of the pickup truck, exchanged between Carver driving the truck, and Pete riding shotgun with him making small talk for information. Some days after they had taken off from the cabin, Pete cut her hair short, chopping Clementine's pigtails right off. He didn't say why, not the real reasons for instructing her to disguise herself as a boy, revealing only the half truth which was to be this: that it might work better in her favor._

 _There they were in that pickup truck loaded with supplies, being driven along a bumpy road to their destination as other group members drove ahead of them and behind…it'd seemed like things were looking up. Yet Pete, he didn't reveal her gender to Carver then, and Clementine couldn't understand why at the time when he and Luke considered those people trustworthy enough to follow._

" _Well, can't afford being introverted nowadays, not with the world as it is; child or adult, you have to make of it what you will. We're stronger together as a community, not alone," those were the words William Carver shared to Pete like the dictator he was, as if truly believing in what he spoke and standing by it. Carver looked at her in the rear view mirror shortly afterwards, eyes smiling. "You're among friends, son. You'll see that in time."_

 _Clementine never said anything back, nor to the nameless young man riding in the back seat to her left—one of Carver's own; the guy was too busy flicking open and shut his lighter to give two shits and acknowledge her. Out of Pete's peripheral vision and support, she shifted her focus to Luke sat on her right, an arm propped up next to the passenger window. His face mirrored some of her concerns, and catching each other's gaze, his hand moved away from the window and reached over to straighten up her baseball cap, the action putting to rest some of those troubled thoughts._

' _We'll be fine,' Luke had been telling her without any words._

 _That camp, it was okay enough when they arrived, two hundred strong situated within a cluster of stores, houses and a small apartment block, all protected by high barricades, fences and patrols. Food was well stocked, guns and ammo plentiful, animals, crops even...Clementine had never seen anything like it, nothing like what was in the ruins of Crawford. They were welcomed in almost like family, William Carver introducing them to many people whose names the years had erased. In no time at all they were set up with their own place with their own jobs, all to keep them, Carver's 'new workers', busy. As they'd settled in over the days, got friendly with people and did their duties, Pete and Luke discussed each evening of them staying longer term, believing the camp to hold promise. For Clementine it was nice, nerve-wracking hiding her true identity as a girl and being called Ethan, but it was pleasant somewhat, just being around other living people, being around other children._

 _That magic didn't last more than for a few weeks. As they became acclimatized to their new environment, they noticed what they didn't before, how tightly run Carver's operation was, how nobody could move freely in and out of the camp, and how those in charge of protecting them revealed more of themselves to be cold, some even sadistic…and much worse. If things at that camp were as good as many spoke of it to once be before, then she, Pete and Luke arrived just before the decline. Clementine saw it for herself in the three months stuck there, attitudes changing, the existence of that community eroding down into nothing more than a prison camp whose leader fell into a downward spiral of his own, absorbed into narcissism and his god complex._

 _To this day, Clementine wasn't entirely certain of what caused William Carver to become a tyrant, her times meeting him few when boxed inside the walls of that camp, for she was only a child and didn't play an active part in the community other than what she was told to do and the few classes for school she attended. Perhaps those nights drinking alone in his office as the leader was rumored to do in the community's base up in the hardware store…it brought to him some twisted resolution. Their lives were never going to get back to how they were; anybody could see that. And so with that knowledge in mind, Carver decided he would just remake as much of the world that he could claim in his own image. And so it was too, he went about creating his new rules that the community were forced to abide by._

 _Few spoke up against their leader, and those that did Carver often found a way to punish. Punishment for disobedience or crimes were solitary confinement for days or weeks at a time, but as things got worse, that increased to beating while imprisoned, being starved. Then it became more of a public event, people being beaten with lashes in front of the whole community, leaving many badly wounded and in need of medical attention. And then,., barely a few weeks after that came into effect, 'it' happened._

 _A teenage boy, he got assaulted by a group of Carver's guys, and the father out of retaliation, killed the attackers, shot all three of them dead after smuggling a gun out from the armory. And what did William Carver do? What did that tyrant do? What anyone expected._

 _An evening in twilight, Clementine must've looked out there for hours from her window of the small ranch house that was their home, watching people ambling about in that camp with little life in them. The emptiness in her chest felt cancerous, growing vaster the longer she stared at that wooden structure in the heart of their camp. It was the gallows, newly constructed overnight out of tall timber beams, with newly woven ropes tied up to them…two of nooses were occupied._

" _Let this be a message to all of you. Insubordination, killing my most trusted men? It won't be tolerated," Carver was to preach to the community hours before as the young teenage boy, the victim, had a noose placed around his neck. Stood up on rickety crates with hands bound behind his back, that teen was only a few years older than Clementine, somebody who she'd only spoken to a couple of times in those months for she hadn't liked him much, but, he wasn't a bad person, and didn't deserve to be up there. There was no courage, he didn't stare death in the face without fear, the boy had been crying for his father for help. His father was bound as well, forced to watch his son be hung before it was his turn on the gallows. The father fought with everything to break free from the guards restraining him, those bastards using violence against the man to keep him at bay down on his knees. Already he'd been beaten so badly, he could no longer stand._

 _Guns armed, a few warning shots at the sky prevented anybody else rebelling the same way, but the shouting couldn't be controlled. The small restless crowd that was to be their community had given protest, spouting anger and pleas around Clementine and from the beaten father himself for his son to be spared. "Punish me; I killed them! Please just spare my boy!" he had begged Carver, but it fell on deaf ears like all the others._

" _You can't do this! This isn't right!"_

" _Let them go!"_

" _It's not their fault!"_

" _Please!"_

 _Lynching, the new method of execution William Carver announced that day, where 'criminals' would be hung by their necks until dead and turned. Their reanimated corpses would be left strung there in the center of the camp for a week Carver warned, for all to see before they would be cut down, and their live walker heads would then be impaled upon a stick outside their gates to ward off outsiders, and serving as a lesson to those inside as well. They were the actions of a madman. The way Carver talked was like one too._

 _Against Pete's words, Luke had pushed through the few people ahead of them in the crowd, unable to stay silent over the public executions._

" _Will, stop this! That's enough!"_

 _The leader had turned attention upon her friend, and hoarse chuckling broke out from the older man. Carver hadn't been the least bit fazed or concerned. "Finally manning up, eh? Get back in the flock with the others, Luke; the act doesn't suit you."_

 _Pete was already there, pulling Luke back, Clementine catching the hunter warning him in a low voice not to do what he was, but again Luke wrenched himself free of the hunter's grip, not backing down._

" _And what you're doin' is just hunky-dory? You beat us like dogs, and now this? What's killin' 'em goin' to do, huh? How's killin' a pa and his boy you wouldn't protect gonna to prove anythin'!?"_

 _That's all her friend got out. Shocked cries rang out from the crowd after Carver swiftly went over and knocked Luke down with a punch to the face, delivering a few more upon grabbing her friend by the collar of his shirt. Clementine was stopped from running out there to help by Pete, who stepped in to do what she wouldn't have succeeded with: confronting Carver._

 _Even as a few guards put him at gunpoint, Pete stood his ground._

" _Leave him alone, William! You got a bone to pick you take it out on me!"_

 _It was enough to stop the beatings, more out of amusement than for actions involving mercy. Carver took none of it seriously, leaving Luke on the ground nearly out cold, dumped like trash._

" _What is it with you and nobility, Pete? You want to take their place, huh? You and that little brat on gallows?" he'd asked, a shiver going down Clementine spine when Carver pointed at her. "Let's see you do it, either one of you!" up the leader was on his feet, turning to address the rest of the community surrounding them, yelling at the top of his lungs with a cracking in his voice from decades of smoking cigars. "Is anybody willing to take their place? Any volunteers to save the murderer and his bastard son? Anyone!?"_

" _Plea...please! Somebody help!" the teenage son had cried, snotty nosed and teary eyed with his sobs rising in volume as the crowd had grown quiet. Father and son begged for a savior, but none stepped up. Many people looked at each other, hopelessness on all their faces, none of bravery, not like what Pete or Luke had shown. But even them, they weren't willing to sacrifice themselves to save a life, and neither was anybody else. Clementine was too scared to say anything. She would've been killed too, if she had._

" _Just what I thought; bunch of spineless chickens. This is why you need me, this way of life. Out there, you'd all be fresh pickings for the dead," with that message left to sink for a few, Carver shouted out an order to his men at the gallows by the noosed teenager. "Drop him!"_

" _No!" was to be the word cried by the father and many others, and they were ignored. The wooden crates to have wobbled under the teenage boy's feet were finally knocked out from under him, and Clementine immediately looked away. She couldn't watch._

 _She didn't have to stay there long, Pete had made use of Carver's distraction in the watching life go out of that boy to hoist a half-conscious Luke up from the ground and helped him leave. Pete had told her to follow them, and Clementine was thankful that she did. They were lucky Carver hadn't done worse, but he would've in time; he never spared anybody for long, and after that incident, for speaking out against their leader, they had become marked. That was the way things had become, wean out the weak and deal with those that caused problems, keeping only those who would obey and conform unwilling or not. They meant nothing._

 _Back at their 'home' then to be a small ranch house, from her bedroom window she'd watched the crowds disperse, those two bodies hanging from the gallows. Even from such a distance and a few trees blocking the way, she could see them moving, their corpses spinning on those ropes strung up by their necks, unable to get free even in death. Clementine was terrified of the same happening to her._

 _From a crack in her bedroom door later that night, she was pulled away from the window by Pete and Luke's hushed voices from the living room. Their whispering signaled a conversation between the two men they didn't want her to overhear, the cue Clementine took to sneak out from her room to eavesdrop on the pair._

" _This is bone, a lost cause, Luke; there's nothin' we can do for folks here. If it were just you and me I'd've rallied some people together, but there aren't enough brave men and women repellin', and this sure as hell ain't no place for a young girl. You've seen the way they've been looking at her."_

" _Yeah, I know but…Jesus what the fuck happened? I thought we were doin' right by comin' here…"_

 _Clementine knew what Pete and Luke referred to, those of the strange looks some of Carver's flunkies gave her and others in the community. She'd been passing less for a boy every day, her body beginning to turn against her despite the efforts to cover herself up with baggier pants and jackets. They'd been worried she might start her period anytime too, and that was the last thing they needed happening in their situation._

 _Her gender never came out because they never got time to reveal it when things started to go south in the camp, believing they would be out of there soon enough after realizing how bad things were. But then they got held up, unable to leave, and then that day with people being executed, and them being on William Carver's impending death list, Pete's old plan of Clementine cross-dressing for the road worked against them like a ticking time bomb. There were few women in the camp and no babies born, because nobody wanted to have families when the dead were walking or when treated like prisoners of war. It all got brought up the week before in a mandatory 'town meeting' Carver arranged, stating that for their community to last, they had to behave like a community and do what was important for the sake of mankind. So aside from scouting for new members to lure in with false promises, he'd encouraged that couples should settle down and have families._

 _It was all an excuse, feeding everybody bullshit to spark the low mentality that it was a free for all for Carver's men to help themselves to anyone whether they consented or not, and with no consequences to the perpetrators, and so leading to the incident at the gallows. But it wasn't the first, she remembered hearing the odd thing, stuff that'd happened before and how Pete and Luke stopped letting her go anywhere by herself. The way others looked at her too wasn't just suspicion_ _over her gender, there was something predatory in some of Carver's flunkies which didn't make much sense to her then, but she knew she didn't like it._

 _If they'd found out Clementine wasn't a boy, Carver would've used it as an excuse to kill her friends for keeping a girl on the verge of puberty hidden when there were so few women. It'd made her skin crawl thinking about it. Her time with the stranger in the Marsh House had felt like a goddamn picnic compared to that disgusting place!_

 _Having stood in the hall, she'd watched the shadows move on the floor cast from the living room. Feet padding on carpet, there was the creak of leather and she caught sight of Luke's back from he sat down on the couch, oblivious of her presence. A damp cloth pressed to one side of his face still sore, a black eye partially swollen, he spoke to Pete, the old timer beyond her line of sight._

" _So what's the plan?" Luke had asked._

 _Slow steps paced around in the living room, Pete answered._

" _I figure we've got enough rations stockpiled here to get us by a few days between the three of us, a few more if we're careful. I say we pack up and leave tonight, and no playin' with fire tryin' to get into the armory for guns; that buildin' will be too heavily guarded now. Couldn't bribe them to slack off if we tried," the last part failed to come off as a joke. Clementine wasn't sure that it was intended as one by Pete. "We've still got our own gear we smuggled out before security got tight; they'll do us just fine 'til we can get our hands on a rifle or two."_

" _I hear ya, but tonight?" Luke sounded skeptical. "Pete you sure that's such a good idea after what just happened today? We should prepare—"_

" _I've been preparin' Luke, long before any of this." Pete had boldly replied. "I didn't take up watch duty in the early days for nothin', like you weren't for keepin' them wire cutters after they made us put up all that barbed wire on the fences. Listen, Carver's organized but he's not as smart as he thinks he is, and neither are his tin men. They've been keeping to the same routines on patrols since we got here, and with the numbers low as they are from that last supply run of theirs goin' to shit, now's the time to go."_

 _Clementine had slipped away quietly while the conversation between the men carried on. Luke argued that a few of families or lone parents with kids more might be willing to escape with them, and that they had a moral obligation to do something to help them. But Pete wasn't swayed. He argued they couldn't afford to stick around, and that having more people with them would only create a bigger target, nor did he trust anyone else to keep their lips sealed on their plans to run._

" _We can only hope they have the luck and sense to get out on their own," the old man said with some infliction, yet firm in his words. "Clementine is our responsibility, and I won't let happen to her what those bastards ought to be castrated just for thinkin'."_

 _Shoes on, laces tied up, those words froze Clementine in place from where she was knelt in the darkness of her bedroom, the ajar door creating a beam of light spilling in. 'No,' she'd thought to herself, 'I'm not ending up like that boy.' Her young form rising up, she'd grabbed her backpack to fill with some clothes from the drawers. She left her books, her drawing pad and those coloring pencils behind; Clementine didn't need them. Their time living there was over._

 _The three went ahead with their escape that night after going through the plan with her a few times. They exited out the backdoor of the ranch house, passing behind the back fences of several houses along the way, those windows illuminated, but curtains drawn. They stayed cloaked in the darkness, timing their runs across the open spaces between buildings. Few were on patrol that night, the numbers short like Pete mentioned. Nobody saw them, the sky was clear, the moon half full but enough visibility was out there for the three escapees not to be running blind. The plan was working._

 _They reached the high metal fence without a hitch, the thing boarded up with crooked panels of wood nailed crudely into place. Luke went first, climbing up to where he took some painstakingly long minutes cutting away the barbed wire, before pulling himself over and leaping down to the other side. With a whisper from their friend that the coast was clear, so was it Clementine's turn to scale the fence._

" _Over you go, kiddo," Pete coaxed quietly, with a pat of support to her shoulder. Being short as she was, Clementine was in need of the old timer giving her a boost up onto the fence; he helped with her footing too, his arms out just in case should she have fallen…_

 _She managed the rest on her own from there on out, until part of the barb wire from the fence caught on her pant leg when going over the top. Slightly panicking, she'd tugged at her caught ankle, tearing the fabric and her own skin in the process. With a yelp, Clementine lost her grip upon her leg coming free and fell, just lucky enough that Luke's sharp reflexes led to him catching her safely below on the other side._

" _Gotcha!"_

 _Empty streets, abandoned vehicles, overgrown lawns and houses with broken windows, it was a sight unseen for months as prisoners of the camp. They were the wild lands no longer off bounds, and she had little time to take it all in. Clementine heart was pounding._

" _Pete I got her, c'mon," Luke whispered out to the old hunter, the last of the trio to go. Clementine stood there listening impatiently as those wooden panels of the fence creaked and rattled against the metal as the man began his climb up, Pete confirming he was on the way._

 _Her blood turned to ice when somebody shouted out from inside the camp._

" _Hey! What the hell you think you're doing!?"_

 _Lights flashed from the other side, shining through the narrow gaps in the fence. A curse from Pete, the old man had hurried the rest of the way to the top, an arm coming over the fence, then the other. Just a few more seconds…_

 _Deafening shots from an automatic weapon sounded out through the night like loud firecrackers, small chips of wood broke away from the fence in rapid bursts above her and Luke's heads, and they'd duck down for cover. It was then Clementine heard Pete cry out, looking back up just in time to see the man collapse. He'd fallen sideways, landing in the thick nettled nest of barb wire which hadn't been cut. His body became entangled in the mess, trapping their friend up on the fence like a fish in a net._

" _Pete!" Luke climbed up there in a heartbeat to reach their trapped friend, wire cutters already in hand to start snipping away the coils of metal. "Hold on, I'll getcha down!"_

 _In the darkness, patches of black stains were spreading on Pete's clothes as he hung there almost dazed on his back from where he was slumped over the fence with his rucksack of supplies tangled up with him. The shots had gone straight through him, puncturing his green coat with tears. Already Clementine had been searching around in her pockets for the bandages the old man had given her, and all on the stupid belief of patching him up from the injuries he had no hope in hell of surviving. She cursed her own naivety._

 _The shouting from inside Carver's camp grew louder, the sound of boots pounding on the cement coming closer towards the other side of the fence. Her and Luke's side was clear, but wouldn't have been for long; Pete came to his senses on that before either of them could, the long look he shared with her one of a dead man, accepting his fate._

 _His voice throaty, weak._

" _Get her…out of here…"_

 _Luke refused to listen to Pete, still fighting to cut the old man free, reduced to yanking at the mangled barbed wire he was nowhere near closer to getting rid of._

" _No, no! I almost got it. You can make it!"_

 _Skin ghost pale, a chesty cough brought up blood to dribble down Pete's bottom lip and over his chin. Gritting his teeth, the old timer had knocked the wire cutters out from Luke's hand, placing in its stead that favored hunting knife of his, the one Clementine always knew Pete for using._

 _He'd uttered a final plea, the sort never heard from the man._

" _Quit wastin' your breath on me, boy. Just go…GO!"_

 _More shouts from those in the camp, the lights on the other side of the fence shone brighter than ever. There were people there, so close Clementine heard them breathing. Their anger was directed on Pete, one even mocking the sight of his legs dangling up there from their side. Nothing but thin boards of chipboard wood nailed to that fence prevented her and Luke being spotted, and prevented their immediate capture._

" _There's somebody else with him!" a man had yelled._

" _Get the gates open now!"_

 _ **Carver…**_

 _Having heard the leader's orders, Luke at last abandoned his efforts to save Pete. He'd leapt down from the fence, and upon recovering from his botched landing, he'd grabbed Clementine's arm. "We gotta go!"_

 _Clementine had tried digging her heels into the ground to get him to stop pulling her along, but her friend was too strong. "No! No, we can't leave him!"_

" _We have to Clem!" Luke told her, panic-stricken. "Now move! Don't make me have to carry you!"_

 _She never would've wished that fate on anyone except scum of the earth, but it had to be Pete all of people. The sight of his suffering never left her, of his body strung up there as he was slowly bleeding to death. Helpless he was to watch her and Luke make a run for it, before he'd let out a strangled cry, contorting in agony as Carver's men started to pull on his legs from the other side of the fence, trying to yank him through barbed wired._

 _That was the last Clementine saw of him._

 _She and Luke had taken off down an alleyway between two houses, just as the rumble of the gates sounded from further up the road. Running, running, just running that's all they'd done, keeping off the streets as much as possible, and weaving between buildings. The only times they stopped was to catch their breaths, or take out any walkers in their way. Voices shouted from some blocks away, the screech of a vehicle's wheels driving speedily around the town, trying to find them and never did. Ducking down behind a dumpster as a few armed men passed within a yards of them were as close as Carver's people came to catching the duo that night._

 _They made it to the outskirts a few miles away, out onto some grassy field near some farmlands that'd become overgrown with nobody to cut year in and year out. Exhausted by the distance covered, Luke collapsed over on his back and Clementine had been soon to follow, landing on her knees gasping for air._

 _Surrounded by the long grass, tall enough to hide them in the dark, the crickets were like old TV static, almost screaming in her ears._

" _We should've stayed," She'd cried, raspy and out of breath, her vision going bleary. "Y…you asshole! We could've done something!"_

 _Luke had wiped his brow, having looked ready to pass out. "No, no they'd've caught us for, for sure. I had to get you outta—"_

" _Liar! P, Pete didn't deserve that! How could you do that to him!?" Clementine had looked over her shoulder, at their trail cut through the field. "We gotta go back there. We can't just leave him!"_

" _No," Luke said._

" _Why the hell not!?"_

" _Because it's too dangerous, and if Pete's still breathin' then, he...fuck, he ain't gonna be much longer. Carver'll see to that if the old man don't bleed out first; the guy's fuckin' crazy," her friend's voice cracked as he'd shakily sat up. He'd rubbed at his face, his hands cut up and red from the barbed wire. "I should've let him go first; god fuckin' dammit, it should've been me!"_

" _Then stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something about it, Luke! It's not too late. Why are you, why are you just sitting there!? Pete NEEDS us!" anger brought Clementine to stand, kicking her friend in the leg. He'd flinched, and nothing else, not even looking up. "You're just a big fucking coward!"_

" _We don't have a choice; we can't go back—"_

" _Yes we can—"_

" _No, we can't!" Luke shouted, his voice lacking of strength. In the low visibility the pain was still there to see, his palms wiping at the tears the night kept hidden in its shroud. "You don't, you don't get it Clem, you don't get none of it! We did this for YOU! We did it to keep you safe! If we go back, they'll kill me and do god knows what to…I ain't gonna let that happen!"_

 _Clementine shook her head at the excuses._

" _Then I'll go by myself," she retorted. "I'll save Pete on my own!"_

" _No!"_

" _I'm not a kid!"_

" _Yes you are! And even if you weren't, it don't change shit!" his face wiped on his sleeve, Luke struggled up, retrieving that once beloved hunting knife of Pete's up from the grass. "You think I wanted to leave him behind like that for those fuckin' dogs? Jesus Christ, Clem I've known Pete since I was in fuckin' preschool with Nick, over twice yer age! But he ain't comin' back from this…Pete's dead! We CAN'T help him!"_

 _Denial, it could've been her middle name for a time. Clementine simply couldn't bear it, losing any more people after finding her parents dead, after Lee and their whole group at the Motor Inn perished. She'd looked up to Pete for guidance in those years she knew him, and after everything he'd done for her, she was unwilling to accept death could claim him as well. The only mercy he had, was dying before Carver could put him on the gallows._

" _No, no you're lying…t-that's a lie..."_

 _Headlights from a truck were sighted, appearing on a far road at the south corner of the field, the beam from the headlights were bright, the vehicle, a pickup truck unidentifiable in the night and distance to see if it's origins was one of those from William Carver's community. The direction drove from town was enough of a warning for that, the way it drove slowly along the road..._

" _Get down!" Luke was to have hissed, throwing her to the ground to hide with him in the grass. They'd stayed there low and still, listening to the rumble of that engine, praying with bated breath that it didn't stop._

 _It didn't._

 _There was no change to the pickup truck's speed. The red glow of its rear headlights became visible through the blades of grass to Clementine as she watched it travel down the road to somewhere at the other end of the field, away from them. The sound of that engine disappeared under the noise of the crickets shrieking all around them, where they'd stayed hidden a few minutes more, but the pickup truck never circled back, and no other vehicles went by. She and Luke weren't spotted._

 _She'd breathed a sigh of relief when Luke announced quietly they were okay, and she sat up on her knees beside her crouched friend, seeing nobody by the roadside, or anyone in that field in search of them._

 _By the time Clementine spoke, her voice too was hush._

" _Was that them?"_

" _Probably; wouldn't put it past 'em comin' this far out of town," Luke hadn't risked standing, so neither did she. The man looking over both his shoulders until something caught his attention, he'd tapped her shoulder to point it out the blacken silhouette of pylons going across farmlands into some woods. "We should head over that way; need to cover as much ground while the night's on our side. Gotta put as much distance between us and them as we can so we don't get cut off, understand?"_

 _No going back, no rescue for Pete._

 _Pete was gone._

" _Yeah…I got it…"_

 _In those moments of silence Clementine internally fought to overcome the urge to cry anymore and prioritize on survival, she'd heard the somber voice of her friend, and saw Pete's knife appear in her line of vision._

" _Here," Luke had taken her lightly by the wrist and placed the weapon in her hand, closing her fingers around the blade's handle. "Take it; it's yours now."_

 _Carefully Clementine pulled the knife out from its leather sheath, the blade bulky in her small grip. It was a gift she'd wished was bestowed by Pete himself, not on his deathbed by somebody else._

 _Holding it, gave her some strength._

" _But…what about you?"_

 _The sad smile shown to her, Luke had pointed a thumb to the machete on his back. "I'll get by; dontcha worry."_

 _They went cross-country for a few days, stopping off at some stores and houses here and there to replenish supplies they lost from Pete. They never really escaped, just jumped into another lion's den. Still they were to look over their backs for weeks afterwards, expecting to be recaptured and dragged back to that hellhole kicking and screaming, but that was to be the last they saw of William Carver and his camp, and to this day they made sure to stay out of Virginia._

 _Nearly three weeks later, they met Jane._

* * *

Electric power cables on pylons, they wobbled in the breeze above their heads; some cables some were detached, lying like long dead snakes among the old railway tracks. No electricity coursed through them, and no trains ran; it was the same story told time and again, yet one railway pylon drew something of interest. There were magpies; a pair of them sat high on their perch next to a mass collection of sticks and feathers to form a bird's nest atop of that metal structure.

Clementine wouldn't call it home in a thunderstorm.

"There's a nest up there."

"Oh?" In a short space of time, her dawdling friend arrived to stand on those tracks beside her, tilting his head upwards to the birds. Knapsack over one shoulder, his posture bore a slouch that couldn't be ignored. Weeks on, wounds were healing, but not well enough. Carrying himself like an injured man, with much more to be concealed by poor efforts, Luke wasn't to full health. They left the station depot too soon, she knows. Dumb Pinocchio and his insistence.

One magpie squawked at them, flapping its wings, with its other mate distracted grooming its own feathers. Their nest was old, sagging against the beams of the railroad pylons on having fallen into disrepair. It wasn't too high up to risk a climb.

"Do you think there are any eggs? Clementine asked.

Luke gave a shake of his head. "Wouldn't reckon so, no; not this late in the year."

Go away empty handed? Not a good enough answer, not to the hungry. Some searching around on the ground, Clementine picked up a fist-sized rock, took aim and swung with her best throwing arm.

 _ **CAW!**_

The magpie grooming itself took flight and fled, the other didn't make such a hasty escape. The rock smashed it on the head and knocked the magpie off from its perch. Down the bird went with the pitiful flutter of its wings, spinning like a broken kite, and was dead before it hit the ground in a twitching feathery ball.

Her friend's eyes were wide in his sockets.

"Oh come on! How'd you even…no fuckin' way!"

Clementine felt herself smile, releasing a chuckle while taking a nonchalant stroll over to claim the prize. The magpie's body was warm, head rolling limply when picked up; a wound was exposed red under those small jet black feathers on its skull, its wings and tails feathers so blue and shiny, _soft_. Not much of a meal, but it would do.

' _Sorry little guy,'_ she willed it to hear, as if sending the message through the gentleness of her touch.

"We can't eat that," Luke said.

Over one shoulder, Clementine turned to her friend, a good mood snuffed out from the disapproval directed upon her.

"Why not?" she challenged.

The man's jaw tightened.

"The crows, Clem," Luke replied.

Images manifested, black feathery birds with long pointy beaks, pecking at the sockets of trapped corpses in a car wrecks, flesh ripped, organs exposed, and still the dead groaned and croaked, pawing uselessly at the crows devouring them piece by piece. Carriers, tainted meat like rats, like other predators or animals that may feast upon the dead…

Her heart sank.

"I killed it for nothing?"

Those brown eyes softened at her with no answer given. Luke said enough without breathing a word.

Clementine laid the dead bird down, the care in her actions meaningless.

"Shit."

"It's okay, we'll find somethin' else," Luke gave as encouragement, just as meaningless to her. The lone surviving magpie squawked, flying circles above their heads. Some minutes later, while some ways off down the track, a glimpse back resulted in a stab to Clementine's conscience on noticing the same magpie had landed by its dead mate. Guilt wasn't a friend.

Railway tracks that never ended, railroad crossings, train stations as abandoned as trains and their carriages, with creaking bridges, and dingy tunnels…little new appeared in their path other than the scenery. They had followed the tracks down south, to where they led them out of state from Kentucky into Tennessee. Clementine suggested for the time being, her friend not being fit to take on much to do with the dangers towns and cities were often fraught with. Less time to scavenge and more spent foraging, using snares overnight when finding someplace to rest; the best meals they caught were some rabbits, but a few fields by the tracks brought them good fortune. In one instance they found an overgrown orchard with unpicked pears, and in another with corn growing among the high weeds and other wild plants in a long disused field nobody was tending to. She and Luke stocked up on what they could physically carry, and all of it was consumed in those weeks, and so once again hunger drove them. Could a day go by without the thought of food in mind? Cannibals; Clementine was amazed there weren't more.

Fall was now upon them and her birthday not far from it. The trees were beginning to change, bright colors of gold and auburn popping out against the greens on those branches, with a variety of pinecones and dead leaves on the ground. That's where their next food source was to be found, within many of those very pinecones. They cracked them open on some rocks, and ate a small handful of those nuts inside to keep them going, while storing anymore they picked up along the way for later.

Hours to pass, those overgrown railway tracks brought them to a metal bridge built straight over a ravine. It still held up well, both sturdy and safe enough to cross. The sound of running water brought the she and Luke to a stop, the pair leaning over the rivet-steel beams to inspect the river below. With their water supplies near empty, and the river being accessible to reach via a descent down a not-so-steep slope of the valley, it was to be perfect timing.

"What do ya think?" Luke asked, fingers drumming on one of the struts above his head. "Reckon it's worth a dip?"

Clementine pulled out the small hand-sized telescope from her denim jacket, checking one side of the bridge to the other to scope out the tree line of the valley along the ravine. She didn't see any threats, living or dead; all good signs. The water looked clean from up here, but the high slopes of the ravine, with the narrowness of the river, and the surrounding woodland dense with trees and underbrush…the pair would have to be astute.

Her trusty telescope was pocketed away.

"I _reckooon_ , you stink," Clementine said, her boots giving a clunk with every step on that the metal bridge, a brisk walk picking up to a jog to leave her friend in the dust. "But I call dibs first!"

"Hey!"

Their scramble down to the river was one dealt by with little difficulty other than the nettles to sting at their hands and the ferns to get in the way; it would be an easy climb back up the rocks, with nothing to fret about. After better assessing the area ground level and refreshing themselves some water made drinkable, they did what was common practice when washing out in the open. Having called dibs, Luke remained on watch over towards woods on their side of the river, staying some distance away with his back respectfully turned to give Clementine the privacy she needed. While she bathed, she kept an eye on the opposite shoreline, and the railroad bridge suspended high over to her left. Fortunate it was the river was not deep enough to carry walkers in its currents, leaving one less worry off her mind.

The water was chilled as always, the dreams of hot showers and baths nothing but that, dreams. Going weeks at a time without washing, wearing the same clothes until they stunk of sweat, skin grimy and hair greasy, it was the norm. Rejuvenating it was to finally wash all the dirt away, to stop stinking of shit. She could scrub her skin raw.

"So, why Tybee Island?"

Nearly done changing into those clothes to be considered _clean_ , consisting of a shirt and her only other pair of jeans, Clementine stopped in the midst of doing up her belt.

"What do you mean?"

Sat down on one of the large rocks as he'd been for a while, back still turned, Luke was cutting some wire, a small wheel of the material carried on them for snare traps currently being prepared.

"Just curious, why _now_ all of a sudden?" he asked. "And that place in particular? Yer folks take ya to Tybee?"

"A few times, yeah."

"Ah…"

The tantō blade slipped onto her belt, the strings tied around and secured, Clementine retrieved those fingerless gloves. Tugging at the loose thread of stitching holding together the dark leather, words became lodged in her throat.

"They, um….we used to go there the same time as Savannah on vacation. We'd drive out the Tybee Island a couple of days on our trip and just, do what families would do. We'd spend hours at the beach there, sometimes all day; I remember there was this old lighthouse with a museum, and there was this pier too that we always walked to the end of and look out to sea from. It was all open water out there, nothing like Savannah." Clementine slipped her gloves on, the left, then right, pressing the buttons into place with a click. "I used to love the flavors of ice creams they had at this one restaurant in Tybee, or…no, no I think it was a coffee shop, or an ice cream parlor maybe? I don't know, but we always ate outside. They made the best sundaes, like these strawberry and raspberry ones with all these chocolate sprinkles on top; Dad always went for vanilla and cherries, and Mom, she…"

Clementine brought herself to a stop, her enthusiasm dying under how mundane her own words sounded back to her. A hairbrush with a missing handle snatched up from her backpack, she combed through her hair and repeated, nosily breaking the matted strands farther apart each time.

She cursed herself. "It's stupid."

"It's not," Luke said.

"It is. I sound like a dumb kid," rougher brushstrokes, the tangles were pulled away, her scalp hurting. "I don't even know why I wanna go."

"Cause it's important…you wouldn't've bothered mentionin' it otherwise, y'know?" Luke answered, his optimism and empathy too pure. "You need to see it, we'll go. Gone the distance for places before; what's one more?"

So many sights seen, drifting through states and beyond that into Canada; five years going wherever the road led them, with nothing to show for it other than the blusters on their feet and the deteriorating photographs in their memories. And six years before that, were the times rarely spoken of that screamed in her soul to be let out.

A side parting on her scalp made from several comb strokes, her hair was twisted and tied into a bun, low and messy. A few strands set free in front of her ears, Clementine fetched up her baseball cap, rubbing a thumb over the D holding well in its place. She fitted the cap back on, speaking aloud.

"Jane, she'd've said it was stupid," the words were too loud, even for thoughts. Clementine bit her own tongue.

Peace and serenity found in that ravine were an illusion, stretching on for too long. A glimpse over to a friend still to be sat on that rock, still cutting more wire and twisting metal, while his back remained a wall with ears deaf. Faceless and unreadable, what was never chosen to be heard never existed...

Luke said nothing. He always, said _nothing_.

Turning away, her head slanted sideways to the river, the crystal clear water rippling by those currents doing nothing to cleanse away those frustrations stacked up in her mind. A bag swung over her shoulder, her denim jacket in one hand and boots carried by their strings in the other, she stepped barefoot on rocks and onto dirt, to where her friend resided. His need to wash more potent in the air around him now Clementine no longer carried such an odor.

Belongings dumped, it got Luke's attention, the face to greet her tinged with a sadness he was lousy for masking. She didn't act on it. Ignoring it was what Clementine did best, and what he preferred.

"I'm done. It's your turn," She said.

* * *

Rivers, streams—they were the lifelines that warded off thirst and dehydration. A person couldn't live without water. A person couldn't live without a lot of things.

Hygiene was a necessity, alongside the need for clothes to be washed. They were to do all that once her friend was done cleaning himself up in the river, with his hair no longer straggly or skin dirty, but exhaustion long set into that gaze of his with few words spoken…the blame hers. The exhaustion would go, but it was still her fault.

The sun held its status in the sky in those hours with little overcast, the day down in the ravine warm but breezy enough that it would in time dry those pieces of clothing left to hang on a tree near the river. Shirts, jeans, socks to even underwear, they flapped in the breeze on those branches like torn sails on a boat, the sight almost giving Clementine some amusement. Once her set were dry, she'd change and wash the clothes she had on next like Luke would with his own, but it would be a few hours yet.

While setting up the snares a little up river, they were fortunate in foraging some wild berries to eat and properly prepared with the last seeds from those pine cones. On seeing a squirrel during their foraging, the thoughts of firearms came to mind again, of the pistol her friend kept on him. They needed ammunition, something to go hunting with properly, and for protection….

Now back at their temporary place of camp, with food now in their bellies, Clementine chose to stand on the rocks, the water from the river feeling cool on her bare feet upon abandoning her boots again. The narrow ravine created almost a tunnel for the wind to travel through, refreshing enough to breathe in the smell of the woods deeply. To be there and taking in the scenery, it was something they didn't do enough of. There were few times outdoors they could truly relax, but it was peaceful along this stretch of the river. No walkers, no stench of death, just fresh air where birds sang their tunes in the high trees, where insects danced over the water's surface. It was a small oasis with nothing to disturb it. Clementine could stand here and never leave, existing in only in the beauty of this place…. but soon the road would call again, and they would move on like they always did, and her joints would ache just a little more answering that call.

Between the rocks a little upstream, Clementine spotted movement. There was a school of small fish below the surface of the water, chords of sunlight reflecting off their scales—trout they looked to be.

"He…hey Luke, Luke over there; there's fish."

With the scrapping of a blade to cease, the machete was sheathed with a whetstone left behind on the ground as her friend got up and strolled over.

"Where?"

Clementine pointed them out as soon as he was standing by the shore with her. "Down over by the rocks there, you see?"

Luke raised his arm up, shielding his eyes from the intensity of the sunlight bouncing off the water. The smile in his voice was welcomed after the previous stark silence between them with little spoken. "I see 'em...hah, shame we don't have those fishin' rods no more; they'd've come in handy."

Like lightning in a bottle it had to be done: to do the reckless and bring him some cheer.

Food was just the bonus.

"Fishing rods are for amateurs," Clementine scoffed and one by one, she rolled up the sleeves on her shirt and the legs on her jeans, and into the water she walked.

"C'mon, not this again," Luke said after a sigh, doing nothing to stop her from wading into the shallow river. "Will ya give it a rest? You can't catch a fish with yer bare hands."

"Pete did it, I saw," Clementine retorted in defiance, moving upstream.

"I don't care if Pete did it; you ain't no fish whisperer yerself," Luke said for amusement. "Proven that time and again."

"Well I'll do better this time _, I will,_ " closer Clementine slowly crept in on the unsuspecting fishes like a cat on the prowl, her legs gliding smoothly through the water with little resistance. She spoke in a loud whisper back to shore. "Now _shut up._ I can do this, you'll see."

"Fallin' down on yer ass and gettin' soaked? Sure, never gets old," Luke debunked, and with not a single break of eye contact from the trout, Clementine flipped him the bird. Laughter was the craved response finally gotten out of him, strained and short, but nothing forced. A knock on effect was brought forth from it from within herself. It cheered her up, and he was more himself again.

Mission accomplished.

 _ **Snap**_

Twigs breaking, somewhere in the woods nearby, it broke all her focus on the fish. Luke heard it too, turning just as she did to the dense underbrush and trees covering the steep slope of that ravine. Near the sound's origins, enough time there was for Clementine to sight a figure stood out by one of the trees, a woman with skin dark, hair gray and with a blue cloth worn over her head…a headscarf?

A bow was raised in the woman's arms, the string drawn back with an arrow pointed directly at—

The projectile sliced through the air at Luke, her friend just narrowly avoiding the arrow as it came inches from impaling itself in his neck. "Holy—the fuck!?"

Slipping on the rocks upon moving, Clementine fell forward in the water, struggling up faster on noticing that woman pulling another arrow out from quiver strapped to her back.

"Luke, get down! Get behind cover, now!"

Her friend hesitated, obeying once seeing Clementine already speedily moving for cover herself. Luke made a run for it too before the female archer could shoot again, cobbles kicked up as he skidded behind one of the stone piers supporting the railway bridge. Two arrows were fired from two different trajectories seconds before he reached safety, one missing Luke by a hair and the other going far off its mark into the water.

More than one archer was out there.

"Shit!"

Trudging in haste through the shallow water, one arrow grazed Clementine's back before she found refuge of her own. There was a slice of pain as it skimmed the skin, but she wasn't to cry out.

Clementine dropped down behind some large rocks at the river's edge, where she sunk her body low into the water. The sound of another arrow whizzed through the air over her head and she ducked down even lower, tucking her arms and legs in to keep herself out of firing range.

The low impact of an arrow clipping off some stone near her friend, a curse rang out from the man.

"Luke!"

"I-I'm okay. Just stay down!"

She couldn't see him from there to be sure on his word. Clementine's common sense to put her gear back on did little in their favor. Blades were no match against arrows, and it was too risky to make a run for it, not enough cover to even try.

Not this again, not so soon.

Somebody spoke out, a woman with a heavy foreign accent.

"You're surrounded! Come out with your hands up, the both of you!"

Luke shouted immediately back at the female stranger. "So you can play target practice with our skulls some more? Forget it!"

"Come out now!" the woman shouted again, more aggressive.

"Leave us the hell alone!" Clementine yelled out, her body shivering from being submerged in the cold water so promptly, while her blood boiled, fuming. "Just let us go, okay? We'll get out of your hair and you won't see us again!"

A different voice answered this time, coming from the archer's side of the river also. It was a man, his tone gravelly, old. "You ain't going nowhere! Just make this easy on yourselves and do what we say!"

Clementine's eyes darted to the trees on the other side of the river, up to what was seeable of the steeps ascent out of the ravine. She searched, waiting for others to reveal or announce themselves, anticipating any moment for an arrow or bullet to end her life. They were sitting ducks out here!

Her heart raced, the blood pounding in her ears. " _Surrender?_ You fucking shot at us!"

"Look it don't have to be this way!" Luke said. "We ain't lookin' for a fight! We've got no quarrel with you or yer people!"

The same tactic as before with the bandits, to talk things out peacefully; rarely did it ever work.

An answer came, the same gravelly voiced man from before. "Too bad! You and your bitch ain't going nowhere!"

Breathing lowered, Clementine listened, the clarity of her hearing disrupted by the chattering of her teeth and the rushing of the river. Her body shook uncontrollably as her mind honed in on memories that couldn't be found in the familiarity of that man's voice she couldn't place.

"Now this is how it's gonna work," the same male stranger announced, "You're gonna throw on over that little peashooter of yours and the other weapons on ya, and then you and your girl are gonna come out here with your hands behind your head, real slowly."

The beretta Luke took from the old bandit bitch, the gun strapped to his leg in the holster without any bullets. A trick once to have fooled them both weeks before, worked here in their favor…for now.

"No!" Her friend yelled from his place of cover behind the cement column. "Just me; leave her out of this!"

"Luke!"

"Throw down your weapons now!" The archer woman with the accent yelled again.

"You first lady!" Luke yelled back. "We ain't movin'!"

"Why can't you just let us go!?" Clementine pleaded, her back pressed closer against the rocks, a sting resonating down her shoulder blade. "We don't wanna hurt anybody! What the hell is your problem!?"

"Our problem? You're trespassing, that's the problem!" was the male stranger's snarky answer. "And if you think we're going to cut you loose so you can bring more of your fucktard friends back here, then you're living in a daydream sweetheart!"

Familiarity again, the past beckoning her, sticking a voice to a face. Her limbs tightened up.

"Who are you?" Clementine called out, "Tell me your name!"

"That's no business of yours; we're not telling you anything!" amusement and anger rolled off the man's tongue. "Now, both of you do as I say or—"

"Kenny?"

No more. The strangers were quiet for a second…two… _three_. An urgency tearing at her from the inside, Clementine called out again.

"Kenny is that you!?"

"How'd you know that name?" demanded the man. "Oh I see, you've been spying on us, just been waiting around here to pick us off!"

Clementine's heart pounded faster. "No! No, no Kenny, it's me! It's Clementine!"

In silence she waited, and then…

"T-That's a lie! A fucking lie, you hear me!?" The man yelled.

"No, it's not! It's me Kenny, I swear it! IT'S ME!"

"Then prove it! Show yourself right now!" she heard something click, a weapon of some kind. Stones crunched underfoot near to the shore. "Come out! And no funny business, or I'll put an arrow right between your eyes!"

"Clem, no! Don't listen to him! You don't know it's the same guy!" Luke warned. "He's trickin' you! Just stay where you are!"

"Shut it, twinkle toes!" The man shouted, that horse tone cracking. "I give the orders, not you! Now get out here girl!"

"O-Okay, okay I'm coming out! Just don't shoot!" Clementine slid her numb body up to a crouch, her trembling hands raised. Shakily she stood, fearing every passing second to be her last after moving out from cover. _'Please let him recognize me,'_ she prayed within her thoughts, _'let it be him.'_

Her body wobbled from small stones sliding out from under her feet in the riverbed, just able to steady herself each time. Hands remaining held up above her head, slowly did Clementine turn, spotting Luke behind one pier of the bridge, his back against the cement column, eyes wide and fearful.

'Get down!' he said to her desperately, his voice low and barely audible.

She didn't listen.

There was a metallic crossbow aimed directly at her, held in the hands of an old man stood on the shore by her and Luke's stuff. He wore a green plaid shirt, worn and faded from age, with his gray hair long and unruly as his beard, triggering thoughts of the jolly man in a red suit. His wasn't big, not in the least; the man's hands on the crossbow were thin and bony, his body frail, slightly hunch over the weapon. That old orange and white cap was immediately recognizable, as were the features upon his face. Dark eyes squinted at her, or rather one did, for the left glinted with a milky cream color in its lens…cataracts.

The years hadn't been kind, and shock it was to see him this way, who he had become. It was no mistaken identity, and there was no mistaking that old fisherman for somebody else, not in a long shot.

It took Kenny a few seconds, glaring at her with such suspicion, until something registered in his gaze to cause his eyes to grow wide in disbelief. The aggression all but washed away from his face, that crossbow slowly lowered down and nearly slipping from his fingers. His lips quivered, her name breathlessly uttered out.

"Cl…Clem…?

She was speechless no more. She couldn't stay put any longer. Pushing through the water onto the shore with everything she had, Clementine stumbled bare foot onto rocks to stab at her feet. Her arms went around the man the instance she reached him, and her heart burst when she finally did.

"Kenny! Oh my God, _Kenny!_ "

She held him so close, real flesh and blood. The tears fell and couldn't be controlled as the years receded to the Motor Inn, the group of strangers whose names she struggled at times to recall. The boy called Duck and his blonde-haired mother who was always kind, and the man with the funny moustache who once shared some of his rations with her and his son when food was short.

Kenny's body remained wooden as a statue in her arms, but not for very long for whatever trance-like state on him was soon broken, the clunk of the bowgun being dropped on the ground soon to be followed by the warm touch of his arms wrapping around her back. He pulled her towards in a tightly held embrace, as if his life depended on keeping her with him, his frame shaking as she heard those sobs shuddered out against her hair.

"Clem….Clementine…what on God's earth are you doing out here?"

" _Me?_ What are you doing here? I thought you were dead!" Clementine cried freely, her vision blotchy, face pressing against her old friend's shirt. "I tried, tried to look for you, but I couldn't find, f-find anyone! You were all gone! Oh God, I thought I was the only one left!"

"You and me both darling," Kenny replied, voice hoarse and broken. Uncaring of how soaked she was from the river, he still chose to squeeze her tightly, refusing to let her go. "Jesus my eyes, I couldn't…Christ, Clem I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was—"

"F-Forget it; I'm okay," her arms loosened around the old man. She checked over behind her, feeling relief by Luke stepping from hiding, cautious but unharmed. "We're both fine."

"It's a miracle; a God damn miracle, that's what you are!" Gently pulling her away, she saw Kenny's eyes red from crying, the tears falling freely into his unkempt beard. A hand went to her shoulder, the other pawing at her face as he looked her over with the smile of a proud parent. "Look at you, you're all grown up!"

The comment brought laughter out from her. "That's what happens after thirteen years, Kenny."

"That's how long it's been? Hell, you kept track better than us; don't know what year it is no more." Happiness so strong it cracked the lines on Kenny face, those arms encircled around Clementine again, pulling her into the embrace she sunk back into as the man chortled with laughter. "God, it's great to see you again. I feel like I'm in some dream right now."

"Me too," Clementine breathed in the smell of tobacco off the man, his beard tickling the side of her face. Eyes reopening at the sound of rustling leaves, from over Kenny's shoulder, Clementine saw the female archer with the faded blue headscarf slowly making her approach through the underbrush to where they were.

Middle-aged and younger than Kenny, the woman was Indian perhaps, or perhaps not. Clothed black from her sweater down to her boots, that bow of hers was unstrung and held in one hand alone. Awareness was upon the woman's features, remaining guarded in the way that she moved, how she studied Clementine and to Luke slightly further back, with an untrustworthy gaze to dart back and forth between them.

Nobody else emerged.

Clementine withdrew from the embrace, searching Kenny's face. "Wait, what about the others? Lee told me to look for Christa and that man, _her boyfriend_ , but I couldn't track them down. Are they…is Ben…?"

"Haven't a clue where the couple went and got to; didn't see them again after we were separated. That girl, Molly, took off on her own right before you…well…and Ben, he's dead; I had to take care of him myself so the dead didn't get him first," A look spared passed Clementine, seeking more than the lone friend in her company, Kenny's question bore some hope. "What about Lee? Did he make it?"

" _It's okay, you can leave me…"_

The man so much like her father, dying handcuffed to a radiator in a ransacked jewelry store, the smell of blood on his clothes and of the infection from the stump on his arm. The thought of Lee like that plagued her like everything.

"He's gone. Lee got to me just in time before... I had to leave him, in Savannah." The tears wiped away with the palm of her hand, the words almost lodged in her throat. "My parents are dead too. We found them right after Lee saved me. They were… there wasn't anything I could do. I had to find a way out of the city on, on my own."

Kenny gaze lost its focus upon her, averting away as they filled with the remorse and grief Clementine shared too well with the man in those circumstances they were victims of. Too many were dead, too many good people who deserved better. Life had played a cruel game on them all.

"I'm sorry Clementine, I am. I should've been there for ya, girl; not like I didn't try— I did," the old timer said, crouching down to scoop up his crossbow from the ground with a stiff back. "Made it to that Marsh House once the walkers cleared out in that part of Savannah. Did a sweep of the hotel but I didn't find shit except for corpses and bars of soap. Had no idea where you or Lee were; thought maybe the two of were…shit, you saw how it was Clem, all those dead hanging around."

The streets filled with the dead passing by the window of a speeding car; that hotel room and the voice of that deranged stranger; the pain from her hair being pulled as she was dragged into the bathroom and locked inside…the memories demand it be put away in a box and kept there.

Kenny's hand gently rested on Clementine shoulder, giving it a squeeze. His face wore sincerity, a relieved smile honest in all its truth; it was a stark contrast to the hostility displayed at her from before, yet it was still all the familiar remnants of a man she knew as a child at the Motor Inn.

"You're here, that's what matters now. Can't tell you how happy it makes me seeing you still with the living, darling. I'm glad you made it out."

No words could be found to answer back, for guilt twisted in Clementine's gut. It was all on her, everything that happened in Savannah, she was responsible.

They were things, that were better left unsaid.

"Honey?" the foreign woman stood at a distance, eagle-eyed as ever with her tone unsteady, seeking of reassurance.

"Aw shit, where are my manners? C'mere, _come on,_ " grinning, Kenny eagerly beckoned the woman over, wrapping a loving arm around that female archer as she went to stand beside him. "Clem, this is Sarita, my other half."

The woman, Sarita, strained a nervous smile, her shoulders tense from the contact by her partner. "Kenny has…I'm, I-I apologize for how we reacted. We weren't sure if you were good people," she was to say, holding her bow in front of her, knuckles white. "The world's such a dangerous place; it makes us jumpy whenever we see new faces and... I'm so sorry."

Clementine's hand brushed against Pete's knife strapped to her thigh, lightly to stroking at the leather sheath. The sting from fresh tears was fought.

"Yeah, I know."

Peering past her, Kenny's eyes set themselves on the man hanging back from the trio. "Who's your friend there? Luke, was it, I heard ya call him?"

From his name being spoken, Luke was triggered into motion, and so did he close the remaining distance, watchful of the couple and the surrounding ravine behind them.

"Uh-huh. He and a man named Pete found me after Savannah and took care of me; it's just us now. Luke practically raised me." Clementine turned her head towards her friend, giving him the once over with her eyes, relaxing more from finding no noticeable injuries. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Luke assured, his voice expressing coldness within it while his gaze remained directed upon the couple.

Kenny caught it, a squinted look held briefly on the man. "Sorry about all that. Like the missus said, didn't mean to go pulling scare tactics on the pair of you. We've not met any friendlies in a long time; mostly been just ourselves in these neck of the woods," the old timer rubbed the arm of his partner affectionately from where he still held Sarita. "Have it do it though, to protect ourselves; can't blame us being too careful out here."

"Careful, right…"

The urge resisted to jab Luke with an elbow for his behavior, Clementine scoped the ravine they were in and quizzically chose instead to ask: "Just the two of you? You mean there's nobody else here?"

"Hah, no no, just us," Kenny chortled, "It's charade of ours we cooked up to scare off any hostiles; works like a charm every time. Hope we didn't scare ya both too much; know my Sarita can be fierce, a real lioness."

The woman in question responded to this with nothing other than a fragile smile, eyes flicking up on the occasional glance to the pair of travelers, then down again. Sarita remained a mute, a bag of nerves.

"So where're you two hunkered down?" Luke asked. "You just campin' out here or…"

"Camping? God no! We've got a watermill a few miles down river; was a real shanty thing until we fixed it up and fortified the place. Ain't much to look at, but it's our homestead," with a pause, a grin set itself upon Kenny's aged features as he looked towards Clementine with enthusiasm. "Shit, why bother telling you about it? You'll come and see it for yourselves; we've got a lot to catch up on." He chuckled, looking so alive. "Jesus, can't even believe I'm saying that! W-We've gotta celebrate!"

The old man's laughter was contiguous. Clementine couldn't stop smiling, so ecstatic. Surreal...it really was.

"K-Kenny," Sarita rested a hand over her partner's chest, her gaze a searching one held upon Kenny until something registered, an intangible emotion in his eyes. He scratched at his scraggy beard, wiping his lips.

"Right, I…give us a minute, Clementine; need to have a talk with the missus; won't take long."

"Um, yeah sure."

But it did take long. The couple had walked a little up the river and out of earshot to talk, and that they were for several minutes and counting. Clementine couldn't hear what was being discussed, but through the tone of their voices and through body language, it was obvious they were arguing about _something_. Sarita appeared the most stressed of the pair, the woman pacing and on the verge of tears.

Kenny was right, they weren't used to friendlies.

"This is a bad idea."

The opinion was unwelcomed, as was the skepticism Luke still displayed towards the couple as he watched them.

"And why is that?" Clementine asked defensively.

Luke turned to her, speaking in a low voice as before. "Clem, they just tried to kill us! Don't pretend like that shit didn't happen, 'cause I ain't exactly forgettin' in a hurry."

The dull stinging from the scratch on her back registered again, the fear from their dice with death still in her veins.

"They didn't mean it, okay?" Clementine reasoned, she too keeping her voice down. "Kenny said so, they were trying to scare us; they didn't know who we were."

"Scare us?" Luke repeated. "You call nearly gettin' shot at by arrows tryin' to fuckin' _scare us!?_ "

"They apologized!"

"And that makes everythin' peachy? Clem, somethin's wrong here!"

"There's…will you stop!? It's not like that. They're not shady!" Clementine glanced over at the couple, ensuring they weren't listening. They weren't, the pair still chatting in a heated debate. She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the autumn chill more now in that ravine with her being clothes soaked. "You think I wasn't scared? I nearly shit myself…but God— Luke, it's Kenny, _Kenny!_ not some fucking rapist bandit. He's a friend; we can trust him."

"That was thirteen years ago, people change, Clem" Luke argued, a tad restrained. "And you said so yourself, he weren't sound of mind last ya saw of him. How d'ya know it's any different now?"

Clementine held her tongue, silenced by the memory of Kenny slumped drunk on the couch, drinking from a whole huge bottle of whiskey; of the death threats the man threw at Ben in the school as he was restrained like a wild animal. As a child in those times, Clementine was frightened, fearful enough she couldn't speak with the man anymore she once trusted. Seeing him there now, hushing Sarita over something beyond her and Luke's range of hearing while he tenderly cupped the woman's face, Clementine couldn't…

"He lost his family, Luke," she said, rubbing her arms to generate heat. "You and I both know what that's like, what it does."

Luke's jaw tightened, those brows furrowing over the complexity of things he wouldn't share. Instead, the man chose to turn his attention back to watch the couple. Kenny was saying something, but Sarita was shaking her head to it, her grip unyielding on that wooden bow of hers between them. Sympathy for the woman wasn't beyond Clementine's limits.

"I don't know if I can do this again; not after last time." Luke admitted lowly, rubbing the back of his neck. "I mean, they seem alright, but…"

With a quickened heartbeat, Clementine dug her fingernails into the sleeve of her shirt, retracting some digits when she accidentally applied pressure to the sensitive stitching on her arm. "That won't happen again, not with them."

"Maybe you're right on that, but we're better off by ourselves." Luke said, the doubt in his words driving her forward, lightly touching his elbow.

"Luke please, give them a chance. Kenny's not a saint, but he's still a good guy; I'd stake my life on that. And any friend of Kenny's is a friend of ours," Clementine hesitated, racking her brain. "Please, just do it for me. Okay?"

Her pleads had some effect. He pursed his lips, those seeking eyes narrowing thoughtful with the cogs in his head turning. Luke came to his decision, as he'd exhaled a breath, sounding defeated.

"Alright, we'll play it your way."


End file.
